BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Unholy Alliance Douglas Murray’s new book looks at the dangers posed by the burgeoning coalition of radical leftists and Islamists in the wake of 7 October.Michael M. Rosen

Posted By on June 1st, 2025

https://quillette.com/2025/05/27/unholy-alliance-on-democracies-and-death-cults-douglas-murray-review/

A review of On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization by Douglas Murray, 240 pages, Broadside Books (April 2025)

On 21 May, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were shot dead in Washington, DC, less than a mile from the US Capitol, apparently by a radical anti-Israel activist. They were attending an event for young Jewish professionals at the Capital Jewish Museum when they were murdered by a thirty-year-old assailant subsequently identified as Elias Rodriguez by DC police.

The museum event, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, featured a multi-faith umbrella of nonprofit organisations working to respond to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa. A member of an avowedly Marxist-Leninist outfit called the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Rodriguez was heard shouting, “Free, Free Palestine!” upon his arrest. He seems to have killed his victims despite—or perhaps because of—the anodyne mission of the event they were attending. And, apparently, because he thought they were both Jews (Milgrim was Jewish, and Lischinsky was born to a Jewish father and a Christian mother).

Since Hamas’s savage invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023, radical progressives around the world have made common cause with Islamists—not only against the Jewish state, but also against ordinary Jews. Why is this happening? And what can we do about it? In his latest book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, the British journalist Douglas Murray approaches these challenging questions without an ethnic or religious dog in the fight. That does not make him a dispassionate observer, however, because he is committed to the defence of the free world, of which the State of Israel is a part.

Murray is therefore a longstanding supporter of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, and an interview he gave to Rita Panahi on Sky News Australia about proportionality in war briefly went viral on social media in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s attack. Murray then made his way to the so-called Gaza Envelope to bear witness to the otherworldly carnage that followed, which he documents in his new book with frank accuracy and intensity.

Even worse, perhaps, than the grievous wound Israel suffered on 7 October is what the massacre portends for the rest of the free world. Murray believes that Israel is merely an appetizer on the menu from which global jihadists have been feasting for decades—the United States and Europe are the main dish. “[W]hat Israel stared into that day,” he writes, “is a reality we might all stare into again at some point soon—and that some of us have already glimpsed.”

Murray summarises his argument in a thesis statement that gives his book its title: “The story of the suffering and the heroism of October 7 and its aftermath,” he reckons, “is one that spells not just the divide between good and evil, peace and war, but between democracies and death cults.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats and Men Democrats are spending $20 million to win back men—but until they understand what men actually want, they’ll keep buying maps without learning the terrain. By Stephen Soukup

Posted By on June 1st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/31/democrats-and-men/

Since last November, Democrats and their friends in the media have spent a great deal of time wondering what they can do to win back male voters. Now they’re prepared to spend a great deal of money to help them figure it out. The “gender gap” in American politics was traditionally about Republicans’ inability to win over a majority of women voters, but this imbalance has more than evened out over the last few election cycles. Today, the Democrats’ struggle to win male voters—and young male voters, in particular—is as pronounced—if not more so—than their opponents’ struggle with women. Some of them, at least, would like to know why and would like to spend $20 million of their donors’ money in the process.

The explanations and consequent solutions offered so far range from the seemingly practical to the hopeless to the head-scratching. One might think that $20 million would buy something more insightful than this, but then, this is the same party that triumphantly chose Tim Walz as its vice-presidential nominee, fully expecting him to be the answer to their gender gap problem. Or in other words, don’t hold your breath.

In reality, the odds that the contemporary Democratic party will be able to win back men, now or in the foreseeable future, are vanishingly small. The party, as it is currently constituted, lacks both the will and the ability to make the changes that would be necessary to do so. What I mean by this is that the contemporary Democratic party is built on a handful of foundational notions that are, by and large, incompatible with the goal of appealing to men.

To start, historically, biologically, and evolutionarily, men need a purpose. That may sound trite or even sexist, but it’s nevertheless true. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that men need an externally imposed purpose. Whatever the case, women, by definition, have a purpose, namely to create and nurture new life. While men are necessary to create life as well, their role is, obviously, not as involved or enduring. Once upon a time—which is to say from the dawn of history until about 50 or 60 years ago—man’s purpose, therefore, was to provide for and protect the family, to enable the nurturing of new life as safely and successfully as possible. There is an evolutionary reason that men are, generally, bigger and stronger than women—because they had to be able to hunt and work for food and defend their loved ones from danger.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What is American Conservatism? Conservatism, at its core, is a cheerful fidelity to reality—skeptical of utopias, wary of unintended consequences, and unafraid to call things by their proper names. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on June 1st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/01/what-is-american-conservatism/

“To be deceived about the truth of things and so to harbor untruth in the soul is a thing no one would consent to.”
— Plato, The Republic

Let me start with the genus. What is conservatism? The answer? It is cheerful allegiance to the truth. This is especially true of conservatism’s American variant. Conservatism in America has some distinctive features, traceable mostly to two things: the Founders’ vision of limited government supporting individual liberty and the historical accidents of newness, on the one hand, and geographical amplitude and separateness on the other.

Although it may sometimes seem that conservatives are constitutionally averse to cheerfulness, writing works with titles such as Leviathan, The Decline of the West, The Waste Land, and Slouching Towards Gomorrah, by habit and disposition, I submit, conservatives tend, as a species, to be less gloomy than—than what? What shall we call those who occupy a position opposite that of conservatives? Not liberals, surely, since the people and policies that are called “liberal” are so often conspicuously illiberal, i.e., opposed to freedom and all its works.

Indeed, when it comes to the word “liberal,” Russell Kirk came close to the truth when he observed that he was conservative because he was a liberal, that is, a partisan of ordered liberty and the habits and institutions that nurture it. (Is that another definition of conservatism?) In any event, whatever the opposite of conservatives should be called—perhaps John Fonte’s marvelous coinage “transnational progressives” is best, though the old standby “Leftists” will do—they tend to be gloomy, partly, I suspect, because of disappointed utopian ambitions.

Conservatives also tend to enjoy a more active and enabling sense of humor than leftists. Has anyone ever accused Elizabeth Warren of having a sense of humor? How about Rachel Maddow? Or Jamie Raskin?

The nineteenth-century English essayist Walter Bagehot once observed that “the essence of Toryism is enjoyment.” What he meant, I think, was summed up by the author of Genesis when that sage observed that “God made the world and saw that it was good.” Conservatives differ from progressives in many ways, but one important way is in the quantity of cheerfulness and humor they deploy. Not that their assessment of their fellows is more sanguine.

On the contrary, conservatives tend to be cheerful because they do not regard imperfection as a moral affront. Being soberly realistic about mankind’s susceptibility to improvement, they are as suspicious of utopian schemes as they are appreciative of present blessings.

Conservatives, that is to say, are realists. Like Plato, they recoil from the prospect of being fundamentally out of touch with reality.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Beware of Qataris Bearing Jets Nicole James

Posted By on May 31st, 2025

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/middle-east/315166/

Now, we’re not saying the $400 million plane offered to Donald Trump by Qatar is a Trojan Horse. But we’re not not saying it, either.

Let’s just say, if it walks like a horse, costs more than the GDP of Tonga, and comes with gold taps and suspiciously diplomatic aftershave, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t park it in your metaphorical garage without a quick X-ray scan and a chat with Homeland Security.

Because Qatar, lovely little peninsula that it is, has had, well, connections. Not the “Let’s-network-over-hummus” kind, but the “hosts-the-Hamas-leadership-in-Doha” kind. Yes. Since 2012. Back when kale was just becoming a thing. They rolled out the plush carpets for Khaled Mashal, and later welcomed Ismail Haniyeh with open arms, an espresso, and possibly a beachfront view. That is, until his death in 2024 (Haniyeh’s, not the espresso’s). Qatar’s been called Hamas’s most generous foreign backer, which is quite the résumé line, even by Middle Eastern standards.

So when Qatar offers a US President a flying palace, you have to ask, Why?

Because it’s not exactly standard gift-giving protocol. It’s not a Montblanc pen. It’s not even a Cartier watch. It’s a jet. With bedrooms. And offices. And probably a button labelled “Espionage Lite.”

Still, one could argue that any self-respecting world leader with a Davos calendar and a penchant for dramatic entrances might fancy arriving in a jet that screams “Bond villain chic.” And maybe, just maybe, they assumed Donald wouldn’t notice the strings.

But let’s pause here and consider the man himself. This is the same Donald Trump who, on a state visit to Saudi Arabia, was famously filmed not drinking the beverage handed to him. Possibly because he suspected poison. Possibly because it was coconut water. But either way, the man has his limits. After the attempt on his life (which, to be fair, would put most of us off sharing baba ghanouj), you’d think he’d employ a full-time taster by now. Or at least travel with a few tins of Trump Tower-endorsed baked beans, Shane Warne-style.

So why take the jet?

Has he not heard of the Trojan Horse? Surely Melania’s explained the general idea of history. At the very least, someone must’ve mentioned the Soviet Spy Seal?

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Will Florida’s Leaders Green Light a DEI Radical? By Peter W. Wood

Posted By on May 31st, 2025

https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2025/05/29/will_floridas_leaders_green_light_a_dei_radical_1113423.html

Say this about the DEI radicals who have run higher education into the ground: They’re shameless.

A case in point is Santa Ono, the president of the University of Michigan and a current finalist for president of the University of Florida. Ono has spent his entire career building DEI bureaucracies, pushing climate radicalism, and injecting left-wing politics into the universities he’s led. As the Florida Board of Governors prepares to vote on his appointment on June 3, Ono has tried to fool them into believing he’s the second coming of Ron DeSantis. With a $15 million, five-year contract on offer—which would make him the highest-paid public university president in the country—Ono is rebranding himself as a reformer. He brings to mind the Groucho Marx quip: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like ‘em… well, I’ve got others.” But the University of Florida needs a principled leader—someone who will continue its trajectory of reform with conviction.

On Tuesday, the mask slipped many times as Ono appeared before the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees. The most significant moment came when the board’s vice chair publicly admitted that Ono began conversations about UF’s presidency in February. That matters because Ono closed Michigan’s DEI department in March—one month later. This move against DEI has been touted as proof of his reform credentials, but the timing suggests that Ono ended DEI at Michigan as part of his live audition for the UF presidency, not out of principled courage. He was also a holdout on so-called “diversity statements,” banning them a full six months after Harvard. Ono took that action only after being criticized for DEI radicalism by—of all sources—the New York Times, and only after President Trump was elected.

Make no mistake: Ono is a DEI radical, having embraced that divisive and discriminatory ideology for years. Before arriving at Michigan, Ono served as president of the University of British Columbia. In 2021, he appointed a President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence, later bragging he was “really proud” of the task force’s strategic plan, which had become “a standard that is emulated around the world.” What exactly was Mr. Ono so proud of? The task force’s report is littered with racism. It concludes, “Whiteness is an obstacle to achieving inclusive excellence.” But take heart: “UBC is also lucky to have a good number of White students, faculty, staff, and administrators who readily recognize how problematic Whiteness is.” The task force promised that “expanding Whiteness in strategic hires will not be tolerated.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

On Congressional and Corporate Collusion with the PRC Tax loopholes still let Chinese companies tap U.S. credits, exposing how Congress aids a hostile regime while claiming to defend national security. By Thaddeus G. McCotter

Posted By on May 31st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/31/on-congressional-and-corporate-collusion-with-the-prc/

As an American citizen and a Michigan resident opposed to communist China’s subnational incursions into our country, specifically, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), generally, I was both heartened and saddened by Steve Cortes’s May 22nd American Greatness article, “Don’t Fund Chinese Companies in the Tax Bill.”

I was heartened because a strong proponent of American workers and religious freedom once more warned against the suicidal insanity of corporate and political elites economically empowering a genocidal communist regime engaged in unrestricted warfare against our nation with the express intent of destroying the “hegemon” and, further, the rules-based international order. So, too, Mr. Cortes did his part to help pierce the corporate media’s muted coverage of how my home state of Michigan is a regrettable example of American elites’ prioritizing corporate and government revenues over America’s national security.

Mr. Cortes begins by citing the strategic threats posed by the PRC’s access to our economy and government:

“First, it compromises our industrial base because threats of espionage and sabotage follow those acquisitions and capital flows… Second, granting access to U.S. markets grants legitimacy and financial power to one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on earth, one that grows increasingly blunt in its anti-American posture. America should not be in the business of financing an enemy.”

His logic is eminently sound, as is his analysis of both the pending tax bill:

“Now, the new reconciliation bill, deemed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” just passed in the House—and it fails to fix loopholes created by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). As this legislation moves to the Senate, it leaves the window open for Chinese companies to benefit from massive U.S. tax credits, specifically the 45x Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit, an uncapped incentive program for certain manufacturing projects.”

His solution is eminently sensible:

As a first step, the Senate must mandate no U.S. tax credits to any PRC-affiliated companies. None. Moving further, they should stop PRC companies from further infiltrating America’s industrial base and block U.S. companies from working domestically with any company listed by the Department of Defense as a Chinese Military Company or that is considered a foreign entity of concern.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Iran Duping Trump with IAEA Inspections. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on May 31st, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21655/iran-duping-trump-with-iaea-inspections-what

Iran knows exactly what it is doing. It is playing a game it has mastered for decades: stall, confuse, buy time, bring in the well-intentioned but toothless International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All the regime needs to win the negotiations is to entrench enforceability and retain the ability to work in secret down the pike.

Iran could, at any moment, declare itself part of the nuclear weapons club. The mullahs could also negotiate a deal that grants them partial sanctions relief, re-entry into the global financial system, and access to international trade — all while keeping key parts of their nuclear program intact.

Giving Iran any daylight to enrichment is not diplomacy — it is surrender.

US President Donald Trump seems shocked that he is being duped by the superstar of KGB (now the FSB) whose entire purpose is to dupe Americans and the West: You mean he is not really my good friend Volodya? Russian President Vladimir Putin has not gone crazy; we were crazy for believing him. The same holds true for Communist China’s President Xi Jinping.

Iran does not want “peace.” Iran wants victory. Why don’t we? The only “peace” Iran is interested in is one strictly on its terms. With nuclear weapons, there will be “peace,” all right — the Iranian regime’s survival, power and domination — that kind of peace.

Meanwhile, Trump’s “deadlines” with Hamas and Iran have come and gone, thoroughly eroding his credibility with Putin, Xi, Kim, NATO and everyone else. There have been no consequences, no accountability and no results.

This is not about compromise or Munich 2.0. This is about survival. Ours, not theirs. Stop being played.

Once again, the United States has sat down with Iran for yet another round of nuclear negotiations — this time the fifth. And once again, we are told that there will be another round in the “near future.” Sound familiar? It should. Iran’s cat-and-mouse diplomatic theater is not a breakthrough; it is a rerun. Just as the past rounds, this latest episode concluded without any meaningful agreement, while Iran continues to advance in its nuclear program, intercontinental ballistic missiles — not needed to attack Israel — and rebuild its air defense.

Iran knows exactly what it is doing. It is playing a game it has mastered for decades: stall, confuse, buy time, bring in the well-intentioned but toothless International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All the regime needs to win the negotiations is to entrench enforceability and retain the ability to work in secret down the pike.

ISRAEL, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Arc of History Bends Toward Thoughtcrime By Seth Barron

Posted By on May 31st, 2025

https://tomklingenstein.com/the-arc-of-history-bends-toward-thoughtcrime/

Before spilled blood had dried following the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, advocates for the Palestinians had preemptively designated the anticipated Israeli response a genocide. Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro chimed in on October 10 with concern for “the genocide that has begun against the Palestinian people in Gaza.” On that same day, American consumer watchdog Ralph Nader posted that Israel’s “genocidal bombing attack on Gaza’s defenseless civilian population is underway. Once again.”

Innumerable voices have warned that future generations will look back at our silence with shame and disapproval. Bernie Sanders warns that “History will never forget that we enabled this atrocity.” Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis says that “future generations” will grapple with the blood debt we are accruing today. Irish rock band Kneecap explained that they support Palestine because they “just want to make sure we’re on the right side of history.”

Appeals to history as justification for heinous political action are nothing new. At his 1953 terrorism trial, Fidel Castro famously declared, “History will absolve me,” conveniently excusing every abuse he had committed and would continue to commit when he became leader of Cuba. The Left appeals to History as a kind of god, and anything done in its name is sanctified.

Here in America we are told constantly that we had better do such-and-such in order to remain on the “right side of history.” A few days after George Floyd died, the Des Moines chapter of Black Lives Matter erected a billboard asking, “Which side of history will you be on?” Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo vowed not to repeat Derek Chauvin’s name, and averred that “history is being written now, and I’m determined to make sure we are on the right side of history.”

History will also frown at us for the weather. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is fond of this trope. In 2020 she asked the World Economic Forum at Davos, “I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing the climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them?”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went a step further, narrating an animated film called “A Message from the Future.” In the video, the AOC of the future speaks to us from a clean energy bullet train about how successfully the Green New Deal saved America. “By committing to universal rights like health care and meaningful work for all, we stopped being so scared of the future…and we found our shared purpose.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why Is the Trump Administration Selling Weapons to the World’s Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism? by Robert Williams

Posted By on May 30th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21657/selling-weapons-to-qatar

While it is understandable that President Donald Trump is eager to bring business deals to America, since when has Qatar been “a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East”? The answer is: Never.

“Qatar is the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, more than Iran.” — Dr. Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel’s Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, Ynet News, April 18, 2024.

There is hardly an Islamic terrorist group, in fact, that Qatar does not support. Meanwhile, it acts as both the arsonist and the firefighter.

“Qatar has been playing a deadly double game with the U.S. for many years. It supports all Islamist terrorist organizations (ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah). Worst of all, in 1996, it hid future 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in Doha, and when the FBI came to arrest him, informing only the Qatari Emir, KSM disappeared within hours.” — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, November 15, 2023.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s “Explanatory Memorandum” explicitly states: “The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Qatar’s media empire, Al Jazeera, is the mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood. It is this Arabic-language television network that has spread the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout much of the world. Even Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which agree on virtually nothing, both banned Al Jazeera – as have Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain.

When the US sells advanced weapons to Qatar, it is literally arming an organization that openly funds terrorism, spreads radical Islamic ideology and straightforwardly seeks to undermine America, Israel and the West.

The Trump administration, in seeking to make America great again, was supposed to move away from the policies of the Obama and Biden administrations, which appeased terrorist and rogue states such as Iran and Russia. But regarding Qatar, the Trump administration appears to be pursuing effectively the same extremely dangerous policies that endanger not only US allies in the Middle East such as Israel, but the United States itself.

“[US] colleges and universities have accepted $6.25 billion from Qatar since 2001. However, Qatar’s total spending likely exceeds that figure… Qatar is a major exporter of Islamist ideology, which it amplifies on the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera network. By pumping money into the American higher education system and across the United States, Qatar avoids scrutiny as it advances hostile ideologies.” — Natalie Ecanow, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, in testimony to the Texas Legislature House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans’ Affairs, April 2, 2025.

A good place to start would be not to sell weapons to Qatar and not to pretend they are a friendly ally. Instead, the US should start looking for an alternate place, such as the United Arab Emirates, to relocate American forces from Qatar’s Al-Udeid Air Base.

The Trump administration will apparently sell Qatar a large weapons package, including eight long-range maritime surveillance drones and hundreds of missiles and bombs worth around $2 billion. A document from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, notifying Congress of the initially approved sale, stated:

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard and the Jews Bill Ackman

Posted By on May 30th, 2025

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/anti-semitism/harvard-and-the-jews/

It has saddened to me watch Harvard, a university that I love and from which I have greatly benefited, self-immolate through gross mismanagement, poor governance, and ideological capture that have occurred over the last 15 or so years, and that have been brought into clear focus beginning on October 8, 2023.

When a day after the launch of the Hamas attack on Israel, 33 Harvard student organizations held the victims “solely responsible” for the acts of the terrorists while their extraordinarily barbaric acts were still underway, I realized that something had gone profoundly wrong at my alma mater. Further investigations on campus, including interviews and meetings I held with students and faculty, led me to conclude that the issue was not simply one of anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism, but rather the anti-American ideological capture of a once-great educational institution that has grossly veered from its original mission of Veritas and academic and research excellence.

For nearly two decades, Harvard students have been taught that the world can only be understood as a battle between the oppressors and the oppressed, a dangerous anti-American neo-Marxist ideology that emerged on campus, permeated the administration and the faculty, and one which has been promulgated and implemented by Harvard’s Orwellian-named Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (OEDIB). While the OEDIB has recently been renamed the Office for Community and Campus Life and has taken down its website in an attempt to avoid scrutiny from the Trump administration, it has otherwise remained under the same leadership, personnel, and mission.

Rather than promoting the issues suggested by its nomenclature, in practice, DEI as implemented at Harvard, is a political movement that advocates and executes on behalf of certain groups deemed oppressed under the DEI methodology. Under DEI, one’s degree of oppression is determined based upon where one resides on a so-called intersectional pyramid of oppression, where whites, Jews, and Asians are deemed oppressors, and a subset of people of color, LGBTQ people, and/or women are deemed to be oppressed.