Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The other day I wrote about a course in “Liberatory Violence” given by U of C professor Alireza Doostdar, a course that seemed to me to be (while probably not violating academic freedom) designed to propagandize students—largely against Israel. (Doostdar has a long history of anti-Israeli activism, and is director of our Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion.) While I can’t say that the course should be deep-sixed, I can say that it’s likely to promote hatred of Jews and Israel, which Doostdar sees as guilty of “Zionist settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.” Ah, three big lies in one sentence!
Scholasticide in and Beyond Palestine
Jodi Byrd (Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity), Alireza Doostdar (Divinity School), Eve Ewing (Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity), Darryl Li (Anthropology)
Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this project will use a mixed-methods approach in undertaking empirical research and comparative analysis to investigate “scholasticide” as a critical category for political and historical analysis. In addition to the resident research team, the project will involve a sequence of virtual visiting fellows.
This is another way to use College money to do down Israel, and this I object to. Believe me, if there were a similar project designed to investigate “genocide by Palestinian terror groups,” it would not only not get funded, but would raise an ruckus. This one has elicited nary a peep. I’m wondering whether the University of Chicago even thinks about the optics of giving money for a project like this.
Every day, it seems, another group gets ideologically captured, valorizing Palestine (or Hamas) and demonizing Israel. This is dispiriting for Jews, but the latest such capture—of the free-expression literary group PEN America—is especially depressing.
But six PEN members refused to be “table hosts” at the banquet, and then 139 other members (now 242) signed a letter taking issue with the award. Why? Because although Charlie Hebdo is well known to be an “equal opportunity offender,” whose metier is mocking everyone, including politicians and religions, those PEN members said that it was a no-no to mock Islam because its adherents were “already marginalized, embattled, and victimized.” From the letter:
In the aftermath of the attacks, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were characterized as satire and “equal opportunity offense,” and the magazine seems to be entirely sincere in its anarchic expressions of principled disdain toward organized religion. But in an unequal society, equal opportunity offence does not have an equal effect.
Power and prestige are elements that must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse, including satire. The inequities between the person holding the pen and the subject fixed on paper by that pen cannot, and must not, be ignored.
To the section of the French population that is already marginalized, embattled, and victimized, a population that is shaped by the legacy of France’s various colonial enterprises, and that contains a large percentage of devout Muslims, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering.
Our concern is that, by bestowing the Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award on Charlie Hebdo, PEN is not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.
It’s embarrassing to read the letter and see the list of signers who apparently surrendered their backbones in the face of Islamist outrage. This is a shameful episode.
The free expression group PEN America has canceled its 2024 literary awards ceremony following months of escalating protests over the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, which has been criticized as overly sympathetic to Israel and led nearly half of the prize nominees to withdraw.
The event was set to take place on April 29 at Town Hall in Manhattan. But in a news release on Monday, the group announced that although the prizes would still be conferred, the ceremony would not take place.
“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” the group’s chief officer for literary programming, Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, said in the release.
“We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”
In recent months, PEN America has faced intensifying public criticism of its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has left about 34,000 people dead, according to health officials there.
In a series of open letters, writers have demanded that PEN America support an immediate cease-fire, as its global parent organization, PEN International, and other nationalchapters have done.
. . .In recent months, PEN America has faced intensifying public criticism of its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has left about 34,000 people dead, according to health officials there.
In a series of open letters, writers have demanded that PEN America support an immediate cease-fire, as its global parent organization, PEN International, and other nationalchapters have done.
In March, a group of prominent writers, including Naomi Klein, Lorrie Moore, Michelle Alexander and Hisham Matar, announced that they were pulling out of next month’s World Voices Festival, one of PEN America’s signature events. And over the past several weeks, growing numbers of nominees for the literary awards, including Camonghne Felix, Christina Sharpe and Esther Allen, announced that they were withdrawing their books from consideration.
In a letter that PEN America leadership received last week, 30 of the 87 nominated writers and translators (including nine of the 10 nominees for one prize) criticized the group’s “disgraceful inaction” on the situation in Gaza, accusing it of “clinging to a disingenuous facade of neutrality while parroting” what the letter characterized as Israeli government propaganda. The letter also called for the resignation of the group’s longtime chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, and its president, the novelist Jennifer Finney Boylan, along with that of the group’s executive committee.
“PEN America states that ‘the core’ of its mission is to ‘support the right to disagree,’” the nominees stated. “But among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.”
That letter drew a brief but forceful response last week in which the organization described the war in Gaza as “horrific” but challenged what it said was the letter’s “alarming language and characterizations.”
“The perspective that ‘there is no disagreement’ and that there are among us final arbiters of ‘fact and fiction’ reads to us as a demand to foreclose dialogue in the name of intellectual conformity, and one at odds with the PEN Charter and what we stand for as an organization,” the organization said in a statement.
In other words, PEN America was criticized for organizational neutrality: the writers wanted it to take a stand against the “genocide” of Israel. They even claim “there is no disagreement” about this! That is a crock, and again the PEN America membership shamed itself. But the turmoil continued, and, as you see below, its chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, eventually was forced out (characterized by the NYT as “leaving the organization”).
A new article in Tablet magazine summarizes the recent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish stands of PEN America and PEN International. It’s not a pleasant read. I’ve reproduced a few excerpts (indented) below:
Here’s yet another action that appears to be antisemitic:
PEN America has quietly retracted its public statement condemning the cancellation of comedian Guy Hochman’s recent speaking engagements. In its original statement, PEN rightly “condemned placing a litmus test on someone to appear on stage,” calling such tests a “profound” violation of free expression and affirming that “shutting down cultural events is not the solution.”
That principled stance did not last.
This reversal is particularly striking given PEN America’s longstanding history of condemning the cancellation of controversial figures across the political spectrum, including music artist Kehlani (on two separate occasions) and political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. PEN has even defended the right to gather for Moms for Liberty, an organization that actively fuels the book-banning campaigns PEN America claims to oppose.
In these cases, and many others, PEN defended a clear and consistent principle: Free expression must be upheld even when the speech is unpopular, provocative, or deeply offensive to some.
Yet, following internal and external pressure driven by anti-Israel—and, in many cases, overtly antisemitic—activism, PEN reversed itself. In doing so, it abandoned its own stated standards and effectively endorsed the very discrimination it had previously acknowledged as wrong.
The message this sends is unmistakable: PEN America supports free expression, except when Jews are involved. When it comes to Jewish artists and Israeli voices, PEN now appears willing to endorse ideological litmus tests, condemnation, cancellation, and boycotts.
Hochman has been accused of “inciting genocide in Gaza”. I’m not sure what he said, but I doubt it was “kill all the Gazans, civilians or not.” And regardless, PEN America is supposed to foster free expression, not foster it and then withdraw. Note their hisory of supporting other controversial artists, including, for crying out loud, Milo Yiannopoulos. There’s more (bolding is mine):
This incident does not stand alone. It follows PEN America’s recent deeply flawed report alleging that Israel intentionally sought to destroy Palestinian culture and education in Gaza, a report reliant largely on information supplied by Hamas, riddled with glaring omissions, and marred by demonstrably false and inflammatory claims.
By downplaying the atrocities and the horrors of Oct. 7 and largely dismissing Hamas’ own actions that led to the current situation in Gaza, PEN America further silenced Israeli and Jewish voices in literature and culture.
That bias is not confined to PEN America alone. It echoes the inherent bias, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism embedded in the recently passed “Resolution on Freedom of Expression in Palestine and Israel” at the 90th PEN International Annual Congress. Notably, Palestine was granted membership in PEN International, while Israel was rejected, a decision that speaks volumes about whose voices are deemed worthy of protection and whose are excluded.
Compounding this pattern, PEN America forced out its longtime CEO, Suzanne Nossel, after she was labeled a “Zionist” and refused to have the organization publicly declare that Israel was committing genocide. This episode sent a chilling message to Jewish professionals: Adherence to certain political dogmas is now a prerequisite for leadership within the organization.
Yes, the organization cannot afford to have a “Zionist” (they mean “a Jew”) as CEO, especially a “Zionist” who won’t sign on to the ridiculous “genocide” canard. One moore bit of information:
Over the past two years, many leaders in the literary and cultural world have attempted to engage PEN’s leadership in good faith. The pattern has been consistent: They listen, offer no meaningful response, and then double down on a hostile anti-Zionist and anti-Israel posture.
In doing so, PEN America has helped legitimize antisemitic discrimination at a moment when antisemitism in the United States is at historic levels. This is not an isolated failure of judgment, but a structural rot in the organization, one that reflects leadership choices, institutional culture, and a governing board that has failed to intervene.
This past week, the organization formalized the leadership of interim co-executives Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, a move that signals continuity rather than course correction and suggests the organization is unlikely to return to viewpoint-neutral principles anytime soon.
Especially because of its supposed mission to foster free speech and open discourse, it’s important for PEN America (and PEN International) to remain viewpoint neutral, like the University of Chicago—except on issues that threaten the organization’s mission. Those issues would involve censorship. But PEN America is now okay with censorship so long as it’s Jews and Israel who are being censored. The organization’s ridiculous “genocide” stand serves only to chill the speech of members (notably Jewish ones) who dissent. The supposed “genocide” in Gaza (actually the declared mission of Hamas, not Israel), is contentious and not something that PEN should weigh in on. But as we all know, among left-wing intellectuals in America the going ideology is to praise Palestine, ignore the horrors and war crimes of Hamas, and to damn Israel, full speed ahead. PEN America has been captured by this ideology.
Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of the free expression group PEN America, is leaving the organization, six months after escalating criticism of the organization’s response to the war in Gaza led to the cancellation of its literary awards and annual literary festival.
Nossel will become the president and chief executive of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization based in Washington that promotes democracy and human rights around the world. PEN America announced that it has elevated two current senior members of its leadership team, Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, to serve as interim co-chief executives, effective immediately, with a national search for a permanent leader to follow.
Nossel, a Harvard-trained lawyer, took the helm at PEN America in 2013, after previously working at the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA. During her tenure, its membership increased to more than 4,500, while its annual revenue grew to about $25.8 million, up from $4.3 million.
The group, by far the largest of the national PEN International chapters worldwide, also expanded beyond its traditional focus on the literary world, starting initiatives relating to free speech on campus, online harassment, book bans and the spread of state laws restricting teaching on race, gender and other “divisive concepts.”
I’m glad that Nossel has found a home where, I hope, she can promote free expression and human rights and not be required to condemn Israel and its “genocide”, but PEN America seems to be a lost cause now, but just one more organization that has abandoned its principles in favor of ideology (viz., the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center).
If PEN America is serious about its mission, its board must urgently reevaluate who is running the organization, issue a clear and public apology to the Jewish community, and recommit itself to defending free expression without exception or favoritism.
That ain’t gonna happen. It’ll be a freezing day in July (in the Northern Hemisphere) when PEN apologizes to the Jews.
Here’s Nossel, and I wish her well:
Emma.connolly5, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Here’s a 4-minute video in which Nossel explains and defends PEN America’s principles (she has a book on free speech):
Here’s a video of NYT columnist Bret Stephens speaking at the famous 92nd Street YMCA in New York. (It’s 34 minutes long, and well worth watching.) I like Stephens’s columns quite a bit despite his identification as a “conservative”. He’s the paper’s best columnist on Israel and the Gaza War, and he’s also Jewish, and he’s a centrist conservative, not at all a MAGA conservative.
In the video Stephens gives a heterodox take on the “state of World Jewry.” His message is fourfold (I’m expanding on his own words here):
1.) The fight against antisemitism is a well-meaning but mostly wasted effort. We should spend and focus our energy elsewhere.
2.) Antisemitism is the world’s most unwitting compliment, for it is based largely on envy and resentment based on Jewish success.
3.) Proper defense against Jew-hatred is not to prove haters wrong by acting well, but to lean into our Jewishness irrespective of what anybody else thinks of it. As he says, “It goes without saying that there’s nothing Jews can do to cure the Jew-haters of their hate. . . .And there is nothing we should want to do, either. . . If it’s impossible to cure an antisemite, it’s almost impossible to cure Jews of the delusion that we can cure antisemites.”
4.) Jews don’t need a seat at the table of victimized groups. We should build our own table.
To me, the best part is his analysis of the psychology of antisemitism, which he think is not properly understood. Here is one misconception: “We think that antisemitism stems from missing or inaccurate information.” (e.g., the lies of the Gaza war). The result is that people hope to erase antisemitism by correcting widespread misconceptions (“Israel is an apartheid state”, “Israel is committing genocide,” and so on.)
But he argues that Jew hatred is “not the result of a defect of education,” It is, instead, “the product of a psychological reflex. . . . It’s not just a prejudice and belief, but a neurosis.” Antisemitism preceded the founding of the state of Israel, and therefore can’t just rest on the presence of a Jewish state. He further argues that Jew hatred doesn’t come largely because “we killed Christ,” which is just one excuse people use to justify their bigotry. Instead, says Stephens, people hate Jews because of the virtues of our religion (e.g., the love of life rather than death), and, most of all, because Jews have been successful. A quote: “They do not hate us because of our faults and failures; they hate us because of our virtues and successes. The more virtuous and successful we are, the more we’ll be hated by those whose animating emotions are resentment and envy.”
To Stephens, the obvious conclusion is that it’s a fool’s errand for Jews to try to earn the world’s love.
As for building our own table, it seems to involve “Jewish thriving”: “a community in which Jewish learning, Jewish culture, Jewish ritual, Jewish concerns, Jewish aspiration and Jewish identification. . . . are central to every member’s sense of him or herself.” He thinks that this can be done both culturally and religiously. (I don’t know how pious Stephens is, or what he believes about God and the Old Testament, but he seems to be more religious than I thought.) Building our own table further involves expanding Jewish education, building more Jewish cultural institutions and creating more venues for Jewish philanthropy, de-wokeifying liberal Jewish congregations, and “reinventing publishing” so it is not as antisemitic as it is now.
As an atheist but also a cultural Jew, I’m a bit put off by the overly religious nature of Stephen’s suggested cure. After all, Jewish schools are founded on the truth of Judaism, which is, like that of all religions, pure superstition. But yes, Jews need to de-wokeify (the ones who voted for Mamdani, for example, seem to me deluded) and not act like victims.
And I agree with Stephens that it’s time to stop trying to prove to the rest of the world that we’re okay. That is truly a fool’s errand, and what has happened since October 7 proves it. The more Israel tried to help Gazans dispossessed by the war, the more Israel (and Jews) was hated. It seems to me that antisemitism is now worse than ever; there are daily pro-Palestinian and anti-Jewish demnonstrations (e.g. “From the river to the sea. . “) all over Europe, Jews are killed en masse in Australia, and universities cater to pro-Palestinians and “encampers,” failing to enforce their rules when they are violated by antisemites.
In the end, Stephens avers that the precipice of Judaism is but a step away from its zenith, and we’ve failed to recognize the imminence of our downfall. But he’s still hopeful, finishing this way:
“All this was understood once, and will be understood again. Until then, we will, again, endure the honor of being hated as we continue to work for a thriving Jewish future.”
Besides the overemphasis on religious Judaism, my only criticism is that Stephens, like all academics in the humanities, reads a pre-written paper out loud, rarely looking at the audience. But I’ll excuse that, for his talk provides a lot of food for thought—and for argument. And I think his main argument, encapsulated in the four points above, is correct.
I’ve run on too long: listen to the talk (if you’re a religious or a cultural Jew, you must listen to the talk):
This YouTube video hasn’t gotten many views since it was posted three months ago, but I like it. It also is telling in showing the age difference in how Jews react when asked to “act or talk like a; Jew”. Here are the YouTube notes:
Inspired by the viral “Like a Girl” campaign by Always, JITC (Jewish Institute for Television & Cinema) Hollywood Bureau’s new video challenges the entertainment industry’s harmful Jewish tropes by showing what being Jewish really looks like, through the voices of Jewish children.
They describe “acting like a Jew” not as being neurotic or greedy – depictions that we too often see on screen, but as living with kindness, compassion, justice, and a drive to make the world better.
Already praised by Mayim Bialik, Nancy Spielberg, and others, the video calls on Hollywood to portray Jewish pride, joy, and authenticity.
Read the story behind the video and join the movement to change the narrative >> (Go here).
The older folks act out the stereotypes of a Jew (I love the guy who swigs Mylanta and the one with the cigar who controls the globe), while the younger people evince the actual principles of Judaism (I like the little girl who lights the candles). Go to the site that explains this video to learn more.
I think this video was deemed necessary because of the rise of antisemitism and the attendant stereotypes of Jews. For example, lots of people, including Young Turks moderator Ana Kasparian has said that the Israeli lobby controls the US (see this enlightening video showing Bill Maher vs. Kasparian).
Years ago I was a big fan of Doctors Without Borders (originally MSF for “Médecins Sans Frontières”, since the group’s origin is French). Supposedly apolitical, MSF, provides medical care to people in regions where it’s scarce—a mission I like. I gave them a fair amount of dosh, including all of the $12,000 or so I got for auctioning off a copy of WEIT signed by many notables and illuminated by Kelly Houle.
Then I began hearing rumors that MSF was anti-Israel, which disturbed me because it’s not supposed to favor one country over another. The rumors were not unfounded, and MSF’s dissing of Israel increased during the war with Hamas, when it not only bought into the “genocide” narrative spread by antisemites, but also promulgated false rumors about Hamas, Israel, and hospitals in Gaza. Eventually I took MSF out of my will, diverting those funds to other humanitarian organizations. Yes, MSF is still doing good work in other places, but it will no longer have my support.
I consider the “genocide” canard, the dumbest of all the Big Lies about Israel, as a manifestation of antisemitism. If you want to see why, read Maarten Boudry’s Substack article, “They don’t believe it either,” arguing that even those groups like MSF that accuse Israel of genocide are completely wrong: there’s no evidence that the aim of the IDF is to kill Gazan noncombatants or wipe out Palestinians. An excerpt:
Why then did this war have such a terrible toll on civilians, despite Israel’s efforts? There are two major reasons, both consistently ignored by all the genocide reports: Hamas’ cult of martyrdom, and the perverse incentives created by its unwitting enablers. Hamas is not just indifferent to civilian casualties; it actively solicits them as part of its military strategy. It has constructed hundreds of kilometers of tunnels for its fighters, while failing to build a single shelter for its own women and children. It deliberately fires rockets from hospitals, schools, UN buildings, mosques, and in the vicinity of humanitarian zones. Fully aware that it is no match for the Israeli army on the battlefield, it possesses one secret weapon to bring Israel to its knees: the moral conscience of the international community. If they sacrifice enough innocent women and children and then broadcast the harrowing images and casualty figures all across the international media, they can push Western nations to ostracize, delegitimize, and boycott Israel.
In fact, to any reasonable observer, it is undeniable that the Israeli army cares more about the lives of Palestinian civilians than Hamas. While Hamas invites civilian deaths as part of its strategy, Israel attempts to avoid them. Whereas the Israeli government urges Gazan civilians to evacuate combat zones, Hamas prevents them from escaping or from seeking shelter in their tunnel network. When Israel set up its own system of humanitarian aid, Hamas threatened anyone who dared to collaborate, killed multiple humanitarian workers, and punished Gazans who collected GHF food packages.
Note that those who promulgate the “genocide” myth, including MSF, never accuse Hamas of genocide, despite the fact that the terrorist organization is overtly genocidal, bent on destroying Israel by wiping out all Jews, not merely ones with guns. This Big Lie comes from willful ignorance, and, for MSF, makes their claim of ideological neutrality worthless. Yes, a few members of IDF may have aimed at civilians, but that is vanishingly rare. The majority of Gazan civilian deaths came from Hamas’s strategy of hiding behind civilians, including their tunnel system (built at huge expense with money diverted from Gaza) and embedding themselves within schools and hospitals. As Maarten notes, the death of Palestinian civilians is part of Hamas’s plan, and the more who are killed the more the world blames Israel.
Further, those who cry “Israeli genocide” never seem to mention the kidnapping of Israeli civilians on October 7, a war crime that was followed by shooting or even strangling some of the hostages. What does MSF say about this? Nothing. They have, as the video shows, “never issued a single condemnation of Hamas.” That is reprehensible but shows MSF’s own bigotry.
As far as buying into Hamas propaganda goes, MSF has, as the video shows, accused Israel of deliberately striking the Al-Ahli Hospital, despite subsequent investigation having convinced all rational observers (and yes, even the New York Times) that the “strike” was an explosion of a rocket misfired AT Israel by Palestinian Islamic Jihad—a rocket that landed in the hospital’s parking lot. There is in fact video showing the path of the misfired rocket, as well as photos of the damaged parking lot itself. As the Quillette article notes (and I’ve appended a tweet):
On 17 October, Abu-Sittah was working at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City when a major explosion rocked the compound. MSF immediately quoted him in a press release: “We were operating in the hospital; there was a strong explosion, and the ceiling fell on the operating room. This is a massacre.” Abu-Sittah was one of six Palestinian doctors who held a grotesque press conference from the hospital parking lot surrounded by the bodies of those allegedly killed in the blast. His testimony was broadcast globally, and presented as the objective account of a medical professional who bore witness to a devastating Israeli air strike. With the added credibility bestowed by MSF’s endorsement, his words were used to support international condemnations of Israel for the alleged perpetration of systematic war crimes.
Shortly afterwards, Israel and the US produced evidence showing that the explosion occurred in the hospital parking lot and that it was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike. The New York Times and a number of other major news platforms admitted that their initial coverage had relied on unverified claims and amended their reporting as new information became available. Even Human Rights Watch—hardly an impartial observer of Israeli combat operations—conceded that “the possibility of a large air-dropped bomb, such as those Israel has used extensively in Gaza, [is] highly unlikely.” MSF, on the other hand, refused to correct the record. More than two years later, it has still not retracted or corrected Abu-Sittah’s false testimony.
English translation of doctors from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza hold a press conference among the bodies of those slaughtered by Israel in an airstrike. pic.twitter.com/GJB17tQoA2
Did MSF retract its accusations? Of course not, even though Human Rights Watch—itself anti-Israel—did.
As the video above shows, MSF has distanced itself from some of the more extremist people it once endorsed, but it has not publicly retracted or even modified its claims. That too is reprehensible.
I found a 2016 article in the Forward, an Israeli newspaper, that is telling. Already stung then by accusations of antisemitism, the executive director of MSF USA denied “institutional antisemitism.”. The bolding is mine:
We are perceived by some as taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when communicating about the West Bank and Gaza, where MSF has been operating medical programs for more than 20 years.
. . .MSF does not work in Israel — not because of any bias, but because Israel can cover its medical needs. While MSF has offered medical support at various times, including during the 2006 Lebanon war, these offers were respectfully declined, given Israel’s strong emergency medical capabilities. We are therefore not in a position to make medically based observations regarding Israeli suffering. To be clear, Palestinians are by no means the sole victims in this conflict. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, other factions and so-called lone-wolf attackers are in no uncertain terms responsible for crimes and violations of the laws of war, such as indiscriminate attacks.
Palestinian leaders bear direct responsibility for their actions, including firing into civilian areas rockets that have killed and wounded Israelis and perpetuated fear and psychological trauma among so many.
While not witnessed directly by MSF teams, allegations of Hamas and other fighters placing weapons or command centers near or inside health facilities and other civilian structures would amount to grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. Such tactics directly endanger noncombatants, including medical personnel and patients, and are explicitly forbidden under international law. Responsibility for other obstacles to health care must also be forthrightly assigned.
How that tune has changed! The same “crimes” of Hamas given in bold somehow were neglected by MSF after October 7, 2023. Hamas is apparently seen as the innocent victim of Israeli genocidal aims. In an undated statement after the current war began, MSF tries to exculpate itself again. An excerpt (bolding is theirs):
Why are your statements so critical of Israel? Why are you not talking about Hamas?
As humanitarians, we grieve for all civilian lives lost [JAC: except for Israeli ones], and the vast majority of the victims of this conflict are civilians, including many elderly people, women, and children. Violence against civilians is never justified, and all civilians deserve protection. [JAC: what about the Israeli hostages?]
Our statements and reporting are rooted in the experiences of our patients and staff on the ground, and the actions we directly witness in the areas where we work. In Gaza, Israeli armed forces’ activities are central to the challenges civilians face, particularly in terms of access to medical care and the safety of health workers and facilities. We report on these realities because they directly impact our ability to provide care.
That is about as weaselly as it comes. By placing tunnels and combatants in and under hospitals, Hamas itself is impeding “access to medical care and the safety of health workers and facilities.” That’s not to mention their theft of food and supplies intended for Gazan civilians.
As Hamas refuses to lay down its arms, and MSF refuses to condemn their terrorism, I am closing my wallet to MSF and directing considerable resources to alternative groups like Helen Keller International, the Malaria Consortium, and Peter Singer’s organization the Maximize Your Impact Fund.
I haven’t told MSF how much money they’re going to lose because of their ideological position. They wouldn’t care anyway. I believe I told them, after they kept begging me for more after our initial donation, that they could expect no more donations from me. As for others reading this site, where you donate is of course up to you, but be sure to check out whether recipients are politically and ideologically neutral.
Reader Norman sent me the first video below saying, “in one of your posts the other day you gave a link to an article about how anti-Zionism = antisemitism.” Yes, I’ve frequently said that and in fact did so in the last post. And I think the equation is clearly true. For those on the left justifying anti-Zionism, the claim that it is NOT antisemitism rests on an incorrect construal of “anti-Zionism” as “criticism of the politics of Israel/Netanyahu”. Alternatively, “anti-Zionism could mean “favoring a one-state solution, a state that includes both Palestinians and Jews—and we all know what that means for the Jews.
As the moderator defines it in the video, “anti-Zionism” is “opposition to the existence of a Jewish state in the territory defined as the historic land of Israel or Palestine” and that view implicitly favors the erasure or destruction of Israel, which to any reasonable person is antisemitic (where would the Jews go?). Further seeing the “anti-Zionism” trope as being politically okay ignores the fact that nearly all Muslim states in the Middle East are explicitly religiously Muslim as part of their government (viz., the formal name of Iran is “The Islamic Republic of Iran”). In contrast, while Israel was approved as a homeland for Jews after WWII, there is no requirement for residents to adhere to the tenents of Judaism, for 20% of the population are Arab Muslims and many of the resident “Jews” are, like me, atheists who are culturally Jewish. To show the difference, try being gay in Gaza or Iran as opposed to Israel.
So, below is what Norman wanted me to see: a short speech by British author and commentator Melanie Phillips. It’s part of a four-person intelligence² debate that took place six years ago. The proposition debated is is “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” Phillips’s bit, agreeing with the proposition, starts 47 seconds into the video, and I’ve begun the video at that point. Her bit ends at 10:28, so the part to listen to is about ten minutes long. The rest is some person, not part of the formal debate, banging on.
As Norman says, “this is one of the most forceful and succinct statements I have heard or read.” It is indeed. And despite its title, Mehdi Hasan does not explode here. That is in the second video below, which gives the entire two-hour debate.
Here’s the whold video, including besides Mehdi Hassan (his speech starts at 35:45) and Melanie Phillips, Einat Wulf (who agrees with Phillips; her speech starts at 24:00) and Ilan Pappé, an Israeli who favors a “one-state solution” (his speech starts at 12:25). The audience, clearly on the side of Hassan and Pappé throughout, defeated the motion. They are wrong.
Here is a specimen of the well-known podcast “Ask Haviv Anything”, with the moderator being Haviv Rettig Gur, described in a Sam Harris podcast as “a veteran Israeli journalist who serves as the senior analyst at The Times of Israel. He has covered Israel’s politics, foreign policy, and relationship with the U.S. and Jewish diaspora since 2005, reporting from over 20 countries. Since October 7, he has been touring the English-speaking world — the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. — to discuss the war in Gaza, resilience, and antisemitism.” In this 70-minute video, Haviv interviews Ashley Rindsberg “an American writer and a senior editor at Pirate Wires, an American online media company. He is the author of Tel Aviv Stories and The Gray Lady Winked: How The New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions & Fabrications Radically Alter History.”
The subject is how Wikipedia, as well as reddit, have distorted the facts about Zionism and Israel by adopting a progressive, left-wing, and, yes, antisemitic stance. As I wrote a few days ago:
Wikipedia’s main “Israel” entry now declares that “following the October 7 attacks… Israel began committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” placing a blatant lie in the lead section meant for basic, non-contentious context.
As evidence, I heard from a reader who, upon sending me the video, added this:
As an example, a friend of mine noted that the Wikipedia article on Israel states that Israel started a genocide on Oct 7, 2023. She decided to try and edit it. She jumped through several hoops and I will share a quote from what Wikiedia sent her:
In short, you are not permitted to edit any page on Wikipedia related to the Arab-Israeli conflict until your account is 30 days old with 500 substantive edits (not edits made simply to reach 500). I will tell you that the current wording of the article was reached after extensive discussion and deliberation amongst Wikipedia contributors; you are free to review that discussion yourself, it may be accessed from Talk:Israel (see the FAQ at the top). 331dot (talk) 19:38, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
Edit requests are permitted if they are wholly uncontroversial (something that no reasonable person could possibly disagree with) and do not require extensive discussion to reach a consensus. 331dot (talk) 19:48, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
But this kind of redaction is only the tip of the iceberg. In this discussion you’ll learn about the “Gang of 40”, a group of ideologues who seem to spend nearly all their time as lay editors of Wikipedia articles about Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. (There is even an article on “Gaza genocide recognition.”) You’ll learn that Wikipedia either has no response to this kind of bigoted malfeasance or doesn’t seem to want to fix it. Yet Wikipedia was, at the outset, dedicated to giving just the facts and documenting them.
And it’s not just Judaica. Rindsberg notes that Wikipedia is also determined to ensure that the “lab leak theory” for the origin of covid remains a “conspiracy theory” (I myself am agnostic about the issue), and to the denigration of Trump.
The lesson: crowdsourcing does not ensure neutrality, and there is no chance to defeating a dedicated group of ideologue editors who dominate some topics. Rindsberg does discuss how to fix the problem of bias in Wikipedia, which is really a serious problem for some topics since Wikipedia is automatically given a #1 search rating by Google, making it the go-to source for people seeking information. The fixing begins with the kind of outing of sites instantiated in this discussion.
I am averse to long podcasts, but the eloquence of the discussants and my own interest in the topic kept me listening to the end. Even if you think Israel is committing genocide (and Ceiling Cat help you if you do), you will at least learn some things about the biases promulgated by one of the world’s most important sources of information. (Note the shorter discussion near the end arguing that reddit does the same thing.)
The piece ends with criticism of AI. Bogus AI writing and its bogus claims have apparently made their way into the scientific literature. Then these claims make their way back into popular culture when people cite “scientific information” that was actually written by AI in the first place. That doesn’t mean that we should stop using AI and ChatGPT, but that we have to carefully check any of their factual assertions.
