Category: war

Bernie Sanders prepares resolutions to punish Israel

September 26, 2024 • 9:30 am

Forgive me if I put up two pieces on Israel’s wars today (i’m not sure what I’ll write about next), but it’s not only on my mind, it’s the main news besides the American election. (See the daily “Nooz” for this other stuff).

I don’t like to use the words “self-hating Jew,” for I don’t think that an anti-Semitic Jew can really hate himself or herself. (Yes, there are anti-Semitic Jews: who do you think runs “J Street” and “Jewish Voice for Peace?”).  I prefer “Jew-hating Jew,” and although that may seem a bit harsh when applied to Bernie Sanders, he has repeatedly taken actions against the state of Israel. It’s not because he hates Netanyahu, though I’m sure he does, but because he seemingly doesn’t favor the existence of the state of Israel. In other words, he’s an anti-Zionist, which to me equates to “anti-Semite,” ergo my characterization.

Again, I know some readers will disagree, but right now I think it’s the moral duty of the U.S. to help our closest ally in the Middle East—the only democracy in the Middle East—and fight against the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah. Given that the Israeli Army has taken great care not kill civilians as far as they can help it, and has produced one of the lowest civilians killed/Hamas terrorists killed in the history of warfare, there is no reason to decry Israel for a “disproportionate response” to being attacked by Hamas. For crying out loud, everyone agreed with Israel at the war’s outset that Hamas had to be eliminated after the butchery of last October 7. But when Israel tried to do that, and tried to avoid killing civilians, the world screamed “genocide” in response. It’s crazy.

So now, according to PBS, Bernie has prepared a resolution reducing American arms sales to Israel, just when it needs them to defend itself against Hezbollah as well. Click to read the PBS article.

An excerpt:

Sen. Bernie Sanders is preparing several resolutions that would stop more than $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel, a longshot effort but the most substantive pushback yet from Congress over the devastation in Gaza ahead of the first year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war.

In a letter to Senate colleagues on Wednesday, Sanders said the U.S. cannot be “complicit in this humanitarian disaster.” The action would force an eventual vote to block the arms sales to Israel, though majority passage is highly unlikely.

“Much of this carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment,” Sanders, I-Vt., wrote.

As the war grinds toward a second year, and with the outcome of President Joe Biden’s efforts to broker a cease-fire deal and hostage release uncertain, the resolutions from Sanders would seek to reign in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza. The war has killed some 41,000 people in Gaza after the surprise Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, and abducted 250 others, with militants still holding around 100 hostages. [JAC: Where, PBS, did you get that figure, and how many of them were Hamas fighters?]

While it’s doubtful the politically split Senate would pass the measures, the move is designed to send a message to the Netanyahu regime that its war effort is eroding the U.S.’s longtime bipartisan support for Israel. Sanders said he is working with other colleagues on the measures.

Key Senate Democrats have been pushing the Biden administration to end the Israel-Hamas war and lessen the humanitarian crisis, particularly in Gaza, where people’s homes, hospitals, schools and entire Palestinian families are being wiped out.

I would ask Senator Sanders and all of his running dogs in the Senate, as well as the Israel-hating “squad” in the House, this question: “How do YOU propose to wipe out Hamas and end its terrorism if you put shackles on Israel, and, especially, call for a cease-fire that leaves Hamas in power?”

Yes, I know that we don’t know what will happen after Hamas is defeated, as it will be, but as I recall, when the war began, everyone agreed with Israel that Hamas needed to be extirpated. But when Israel started doing that, and civilians died (put most of their deaths at the door of Hamas), they decided that no, Israel cannot be allowed to win this war. And if Israel doesn’t win, Hamas’s terrorism will continue (remember, Hamas vowed to repeat October 7 over and over and over again).

So, it galls me endlessly when the “progressives” like Sanders conveniently neglect several facts:

  1.  Israel is not committing genocide in the Middle East.  The people who are doing so include Hamas, Hezbollah, and Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has killed off 600,000 of his own people, apparently bent on a genocide of Syrians.  It’s clear that the terrorists want to wipe out Jews and the state of Israel, and that is genocide. It is not true that Israel’s aim is to wipe out all Palestinians. If they wanted to, they could have done so at any time in the last 50 years. They even gave Gaza to the Palestinians.
  2. If there was a permanent cease-fire and the war ended now, it would leave Hamas in power. That would guarantee that their terrorism against Israel would continue indefinitely along with their oppression of the people of Gaza. Hamas is an odious, murderous, theocratic, and hateful regime.
  3. Half of the death toll Sanders and everyone gives probably includes Hamas fighters, and of course those figures are provided by Hamas.  The ratio of civilians killed to Hamas soldiers killed is roughly between 1.3:1 and 1:1—very low for warfare and especially low for urban warfare. Remember that Hamas puts its weapons and rockets under schools, in hospitals and Gazan homes, and even in humanitarian zones. Why? I think nobody doubts that it is in Hamas’s expressed interest to ensure that Gazan civilians are killed to secure the world’s hatred of Israel.  So “40,000” is not the figure you want to bandy about.
  4. The “humanitarian” crisis in Gaza has been greatly exaggerated because tons more food is being delivered now than a few months ago. If Gazans are starving, it’s because Hamas is commandeering humanitarian aid. (I don’t think anybody doubts this. either)  Yes, a lot of Gazan infrastructure has been destroyed, but put that again at the door of Hamas.

If Sanders really wanted to do something constructive, he could pass a resolution hauling Hamas and Hezbollah before the International Court of Justice for genocide. But of course neither he nor anybody else will do that.

It’s clear that the “progressive” Left in America is palpably against Israel in this war, decrying it constantly but almost never mentioning the war crimes of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Democratic “squad” in the House, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and their allies, are part of this anti-Israel brigade. And I’m fairly certain that, if elected, Kamala Harris would join right in. That won’t make me vote for Trump, but I was certain, when I voted for Biden four years ago, that he would never become “woke”, for he vowed to “reach across the aisle.”  I was wrong.  And I’m pretty sure that Harris will be even more “progressive,” which is why Russia is trying to sabotage the U.S. elections in favor of Trump. (Their consideration is, of course, largely Ukraine.)

At any rate, opposition to Israel in the war is fueled by lies and misinformation, and, if I wanted to be cynical, I’d say that Bernie. his colleagues, and the Squad could care less if the state of Israel disappeared. And without US aid, it might.

One more comment, this one directed especially at Thomas “I Am a Moron” Friedman at the NYT. (See his latest column.) I’ll put it in caps: A TWO-STATE SOLUTION IS NOT THE “SOLUTION” TO THE WAR OR  THE EMNITY BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HAMAS.  The Palestinians don’t want such a solution (they’ve rejected it repeatedly, for what they want is a one-state solution that eliminates Israel), nor do the Israelis, who now realize that a Palestinian state abutting their own will subject them to constant terrorism. The two-state “solution” can be possible only if there are honest brokers and Palestinian leaders who truly want their people to thrive (I don’t see Netanyahu as an “honest broker” in this respect.)

Such a solution  if possible, is decades away. So people who propose such a “solution” are deeply ignorant of history. And that includes Bernie Sanders, who seems superannuated to me.

A bit disappointed by Gretchen Whitmer

September 24, 2024 • 10:00 am

UPDATE: As Malgorzata points out in a comment below citing an Algemeiner article, Whitmer did defend her attorney general, which constitutes taking sides against the odious Rashida Tlaib. A quote from the Algemeiner:

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) issued a statement in defense of the state’s Jewish Attorney General Dana Nessel over what she called “antisemitic” suggestions by US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) that Nessel’s office harbored “biases” against pro-Palestinian activists.

“The suggestion that Attorney General Nessel would make charging decisions based on her religion as opposed to the rule of law is antisemitic,” Whitmer wrote on Monday. “Attorney General Nessel has always conducted her work with integrity and followed the rule of law. We must all use our platform and voices to call out hateful rhetoric and racist tropes.”

The statement came one day after Whitmer, during an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, initially refused to weigh in on the quarrel between Nessel and Tlaib, who suggested that the attorney general has not treated anti-Israel protesters impartially because of her Jewish faith.

Whitmer, having corrected herself, is back on the side of the angels again. If only she were the Democratic candidate for President!

Although Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, identifies herself as a “progressive” Democratic, to me she seems progressive in the right way: she’s trying to fix the problems in her state with tangible legislation. You can see the list of her accomplishments here, and A. B. Stoddard, writing in The Bulwark last year, called Whitmer 52, “one of the most experienced, exciting, and winning Democrats in the country.” I agree with nearly all of her policies—although she’s a bit too soft on illegal immigration—and that’s why I wanted Whitmer to be the Democratic candidate for President. (Importantly, she also governs a swing state.) She has accomplished stuff in a bipartisan climate, and I’d feel a lot better with her at the helm than with Kamala Harris.

But when Kamala Harris was anointed by the Democratic Party to be its candidate, Whitmer refused to be a candidate. That’s very sad, because, given her record, Harris doesn’t hold a candle to her.  And, of course, if Harris wins this time she’ll surely be the Democratic candidate in 2028 unless she screws up big time, so that Whitmer would have to wait eight more years if she wanted to run America.

So I was sad to see this article in Politico; the title tells the tale (click to read):

An excerpt:

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declined to take sides in a debate between Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) over almost a dozen University of Michigan students charged for pro-Palestinian protests.

“I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having,” Whitmer said on Sunday in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I can just say this. We do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out,” Whitmer added. “And I’m going to use every every lever of mine to ensure that both are true.”

Nessel, Michigan’s first Jewish Attorney General, recently charged 11 University of Michigan students for pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Most were charged for refusing to vacate the encampments on campus in May, according to the Detroit Metro Times.

Nessel defended the state’s decision to charge these students saying, “Conviction in your ideals is not an excuse for violations of the law” and “what is a crime anywhere else in the city remains a crime on university property.”

Tlaib — the only Palestinian American in Congress and a strong critic of Israel — criticized Nessel for this decision in an interview with the Detroit Metro Times. She said: “It seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”

. . . When CNN’s Jake Tapper initially asked about the back and forth between Nessel and Tlaib, Whitmer declined to directly defend or criticize the state’s attorney general, responding that all she could say was “our Jewish community is in pain, as is our Palestinian and Muslim and Arab communities in Michigan.”

“I know that seeing the incredible toll that this war has taken on both communities has been really, really challenging and difficult. And my heart breaks for so many,” Whitmer said. “But as governor, my job is to make sure that both these communities are protected and respected under the law in Michigan. And that’s exactly what I’m going to stay focused on.”

Well, it seems to me that Whitmer should be supporting her own attorney general, or at least saying, that “Nessel brought charges against the protesters and we need to let those charges play out in the legal system”. But she went a bit further with her “whataboutism”, not recognizing, apparently, that free speech is not the same thing as disrupting a campus and violating the law.

That said, Whitmer is clearly between a rock and a hard place. While her attorney general brought charges against pro-Palestinian students, one of her state’s representatives, the odious Tlaib, is supported by many Michigan Palestinians or their supporters. So I can’t hold this against her very hard. While I dislike politicans that are pure pragmatists, Whitmer is not really a pragmatist.  She takes stands, and is known for her potty mouth, which I like.  A bit of that is evident in the video below.

Here’s her speech at the Democratic National Convention, without any nattering about coconuts or inappropriate laughter.  Whitmer of course had to support Harris in her speech, but believe me, I’d rather check a box for Whitmer than for Harris in November.  Had there been debates to choose a candidate, Whitmer would, I think, have come out on top.  This is a tough, accomplished women who has no problem articulating her positions.

IDF posts video of conditions under which 6 murdered hostages were kept

September 11, 2024 • 12:45 pm

In this short video, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, chief spokesman for the IDF, shows us the conditions under which the six recently-murdered hostages were kept. (Trigger warning: blood.) For some reason I thought the hostages were being kept either in private residences or in rooms off the tunnels, not in the tunnels themselves. When you realize how many days these hostages have been sequestered by Hamas, even a few days of these conditions seem unbearable.  Clearly the IDF has already done DNA analysis of the blood and will do so on hair from hairbushes.

The conditions under which Israel keeps Palestinian prisoners, including convicted terrorists, are far, far better than the conditions under which Hamas keeps its hostages. Palestinian prisoners in Israel live in sheer luxury compared to what you see below, with food they can cook themselves, fresh air, and good beds.

Remember too that there are still about 60 living hostages in Gaza.  They should be released unconditionally—no deals, no bargaining.  Of course Hamas won’t do it, but in my view making a deal for the hostages by releasing Palestinian terrorists is a bad business.  Right now the world should be baying not for a cease-fire or a deal, but for Hamas to surrender unconditionally and release the hostages, or the IDF has the right to, and will, continue going after the enemy.

U.S. charges six Hamas leaders with terrorism and conspiracy, and a Gazan peace plan that people won’t like

September 5, 2024 • 11:30 am

As the Washington Post and other sources report, the U.S. has charged six Hamas officials with criminal counts of terrorism connected with the October 7 attack on Israel:

U.S. officials unsealed charges Tuesday against senior Hamas leaders, accusing them of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization, conspiring to murder Americans and conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction.

The criminal complaint against Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar and others was made public as U.S. diplomats are preparing to present Israel and Hamas with a final hostage-release and cease-fire proposal, potentially as soon as this week.

Bizarrely, at least three of these officials are dead.  Another, Yahya Sinwar, the military head of Hamas, is scuttling around the tunnels of Gaza and is, at present, beyond reach. But at least one person, the political head of Hamas, and who lives in Doha, Qatar, is within the reach of U.S. courts. Here’s the list of those indicted, taken from the Times of Israel.Notes are mine except for those in quotes.

Yahya Sinwar, the military head of Hamas. Scuttling around the tunnels under Gaza. Sinwar served 22 years in an Israeli prison for terrorism until he was released in a prisoner swap and went on to plan the October 7 massacre (remember that when you start approving of such swaps to get the hostages back). One of the ironic things about Sinwar is that Israeli doctors saved his life by removing a malignant brain tumor when he was in prison, and he not only didn’t give up his hatred of Israel and Jews, but the nephew of the main doctor who saved him was killed in the October 7 massacre.

Ismail Haniyeh, former political head of Hamas who lived in Qatar but was assassinated (almost surely by Israel) by a bomb planted in his room during a visit to Tehran last July.

Marwan Issa, “the once-deputy leader of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza, who was killed by Israel in March.”

Khaled Mashaal, “a Haniyeh deputy based in Doha and a former [political] leader of the group.”  Now that Haniyeh is dead, Sinwar has taken over political and military control of Hamas, but Mashaal is playing a very important role in the group, not to mention all the money that Hamas has in the hands of its members in Qatar.  Mashaal recently called for a return of Palestinians to conducting suicide attacks on Israelis.

Muhammad Deif, the longtime Hamas military wing chief, who Israel killed in July.  Wikipedia says it’s not sure he’s dead, though was crippled after several assassination attempts, but the IDF says it’s sure he’s dead, and on matters like this I trust the IDF more than Wikipedia.

Ali Baraka, “the Beirut-based head of Hamas’s external relations.”

Now I don’t know what the point of indicting three dead people is; if anything, it’s a purely symbolic gesture. The most likely explanation is that the indictment was issued in February and was just unsealed, and the three dead thugs were still alive in February.

But anybody indicted who is still alive and resides in Qatar can be subject to extradition, and that means Mashaal. The U.S. should ask for his extradition immediately, though given who’s in charge of America now, I doubt this will happen.

Which brings us to the Gaza “peace plan”. The U.S. is saying that it’s about to float a “take-it-or-leave-it” peace deal for Gaza, and although the details are hazy, it seems to involve a time-limited  ceasefire in hopes of a permanent one, a swap of some of the living and dead hostages (not all at once) for a pile of live Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and nothing about the surrender of Hamas.

This is a plan that will fail, and it’s also short-sighted.  It will leave Hamas in power and will not end anti-Israel terrorism. If you want a good explication of its problems, read Bret Stephens’s column in the NYT yesterday, “A hostage deal is a poison pill for Israel” (link is archived).

Like me, Stephens is no fan of Netanyahu, but he thinks that the PM is right in his strategy about the war (read the column).  Stephens has always been the most sensible NYT op-ed writer about the war: far more cogent than, for example, Tom “I Know Nothing” Friedman. Stephens’s column, which once again I recommend, ends this way:

There are bright people who say that what Israel ought to do now is cut a deal, recover its hostages, take a breather and start preparing for the next war, probably in Lebanon. Israelis should remember that wars will be worse, and come more often, to those who fail to win them.

Here’s my own recommendations for ending the war. They may not work, but they seem sensible, and most of them are based on Malgorzata’s ideas:

a.) Call for the extradition of Mashaal now.

b.) Qatar should arrest all Hamas members finding refuge in that country and freeze their bank accounts (there are billions of dollars there, most of the money in the hands of Hamas). That money should be used to rebuild Gaza.

c.) The first two points should be done under a U.S. threat: do these things or face the removal of the U.S. military presence in Qatar (its base is shared with the RAF, so the UK would have to agree as well). We don’t need the base that badly (we have other bases in other Middle East nations), but Qatar desperately needs it, for without it, oil-rich Qatar will be taken over by countries like the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.(Qatar has almost no military of its own.) This would be a threat with real teeth. And the U.S. should be ready to follow through with it, as with all meaningful threats.

d.) Instead of confecting unworkable and, frankly, stupid peace plans, the U.S. should simply call for the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the instantaneous release of all the hostages.  Hamas will not surrender, of course, but anybody who values their life (and yes, there’s a rub there) must realize that Israel under Netanyahu has vowed to destroy the military capabilities of Hamas—and will do so. The Biden Administration (and Harris, should she win) should be giving nothing to terrorists like Hamas.

The moral right in this conflict lies with Israel, not with Hamas, and the U.S. should be calling for the terrorists to give up, end the war, and release the hostages. Remember again that the “take-it-or-leave-it” deal will not work and gives plenty of stuff to Hamas.

Needless to say, the U.S. should not be cutting aid to Israel, even though some European countries are.  Such cuts are again ludicrous and short-sighted given Israel’s care to kill as few Gazan civilians as possible combined with Hamas’s desire to get as many non-combatant Gazan civilians killed as possible to excite the world’s opprobrium against Israel. Right now, Europe, and to some extent the U.S., is doing pretty much what Hamas wants.

e.) What about the day after?  A two-state solution is not in the offing right now; that much is clear and amounts to rewarding Hamas for the October 7 attack. I suspect that a military occupation of Gaza will have to occur for some time, as happened in Germany and Japan after World War II.  At the same time, Israel and its allies should be grooming reasonable and peaceful Palestinians to take over running Gaza. (I’m not discussing the West Bank here.)

Yes, yes, I know all the weaknesses of this plan: Hamas won’t give up, the U.S. won’t threaten to dismantle a military base, no credible Palestinians who don’t want to destroy Israel will be found, etc. etc. If you want to pick at the plan, at least do something constructive and propose a better one, and one that doesn’t lead to Israel losing the war and facing many more October-7-like episodes.

But one thing is certain, something Bret Stephens encapsulates in his last sentence: all the “cease fire” proposals floating around now are guaranteed to leave Hamas in power, and thus to keep a constant threat of terrorism against Israel. And that means that peace will never be attained.

Six young Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas

September 1, 2024 • 11:30 am

It’s unbelievable that the bulk of American progressive liberals and academics seems to sympathize with a group of terrorist thugs who not only invaded Israel and killed 1,139 people, many in gruesome ways, including killing women after raping them, but also took 250 hostages of various nationalities, including children, into Gaza to use as bargaining chips to temper Israel’s inevitable response.

Not only do people seem to have forgotten that the taking of civilian hostages is a war crime, but now that crime has been magnified by the discovery that six of those hostages were shot to death by Hama in Rafah. No, they didn’t die of old age or disease, which would be bad enough, but these were people in the prime of life, brutally murdered for reasons we can only guess at, but probably with some accuracy.

There are two stories below, the first from the Times of Israel and the second from the New York Times (click either to read, and the NYT story is archived here

You can read the NYT yourself; I’ll give the details from the ToI:

First, here are the hostages who were murdered:

From Times of Israel: This combination of six undated photos shows hostages, from top left, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi; from bottom left, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lubnov, and Carmel Gat (The Hostages Families Forum via AP)

An excerpt from the ToI:

The bodies of six hostages abducted alive by Hamas on October 7 were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah overnight, shortly after they were murdered by terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday.

The hostages were Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lubnov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 27.

Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi, Lubnov, Sarusi and Danino (an off-duty noncommissioned officer) were abducted from the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, while Gat was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the six were “brutally murdered” by Hamas shortly before troops arrived — possibly only a day or two before they were found.

“According to an initial assessment… they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short while before we reached them. They were abducted alive on the morning of October 7 by the Hamas terror group,” Hagari said in a press conference.

“Their bodies were found during the fighting in Rafah, in a tunnel, about a kilometer away from the tunnel from which we rescued Farhan al-Qadi a few days ago,” he said.

. . .US President Joe Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” by the deaths of the hostages, in particular that of dual Israeli-US citizen Goldberg-Polin, whose parents, Jon and Rachel, he and other Americans had kept in their prayers.

“I have worked tirelessly to bring their beloved Hersh safely to them and am heartbroken by the news of his death,” Biden said.

“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages,” he said.

The rub here is the “deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages”, which can only mean acceding to Hamas’s demand that Israel agree to a permanent cease-fire and withdraw from Gaza. In other words, placing the responsibility solely on Israel to “bring them home” is asking for Israel to lose the war to Hamas. And Hamas has of course vowed, if it retains power, to repeat the atrocities of October 7 over and over and over again.

Why were the hostages shot when they could be possible bargaining chips for Hamas? (This isn’t the first time we have evidence that Israeli hostages were murdered.) I can think of three reasons. First, Israeli troops were on the trail of these hostages, and rather than engage in a firefight with the IDF (a losing proposition for Hamas guards), they decided to kill the hostages rather than run with them. After all, keeping hostages alive slows you down, and no Hamas soldier wants to engage in an open firefight with the IDF.

Second, the killing could also have involved a calculation, one that carries some water, that more dead hostages would put Western pressure on Israel to agree to a cease-fire, an agreement that could only endanger Israel in the long run since it would leave Hamas in power as well as secure the release of about 10,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, a constant condition that Hamas has made for an end to the fighting, even if Israel completely withdrew from Gaza.

Finally, even with six hostages dead Hamas still holds 100 more, about two-thirds of them still alive.  We already know that Israel was willing in 2011 to release 1,027 prisoners—most of them Palestinians and other Arabs—in return for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. 280 of the prisoners were serving life sentences for terrorism, having been responsible for 569 Israelis. What happened? Dozens of the released prisoners became active in Hamas, responsible for killing at least six Israelis. One of the released prisoners was Yahya Sinwar, who helped plan the Oct. 7 massacre and is still on the loose. Was it a good deal, then, to release Sinwar and other murderous terrorists, who in toto killed well over a thousand Israelis, to save the life of one Israeli soldier. I’ll let readers ponder this ethical balance and decide how one should deal with the roughly 70 Israeli hostages left? (I’m acutely aware that this calculus may sound cold, but it’s really based on a concern about the value of human lives.)

Indeed, the ratcheting up calls for a ceasefire (i.e., calls for Israel to lose the war and be subject to Hamas terrorism forever), does seem to have increased pressure on Israel, and on Netanyahu in particular. The NYT article emphasizes the Netanyahu aspect:

An excerpt from the NYT:

Outrage mixed with grief in Israel on Sunday, with many Israelis directing their anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the news that six bodies found in Gaza were dead hostages.

Advocates for hostages and members of Mr. Netanyahu’s political opposition swiftly accused the Israeli leader of torpedoing monthslong efforts to broker a deal with Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages, further imperiling them.

“For eleven months, the government of Israel led by Netanyahu failed to do what is expected of a government — to bring its sons and daughters home,” a group representing the families of the hostages said in a statement. “Netanyahu: Enough of the excuses. Enough of the spin. Enough of the abandonment.”

The responses to the hostages’ deaths put into focus the stark divisions within Israel over the war. While many hostage families and their supporters have called for a deal with Hamas, even if it leaves the group intact, Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have said a bad deal with Hamas could put Israel’s long-term security at risk.

Much as I dislike Netanyahu and wish for his eventual deposition, I think he’s right here. If you follow the logic of those who blame Netanyahu for failure of Hamas to release the hostages, the only way to get them released is for Israel to let Hamas win (guaranteeing more episodes like October 7) as well as to release thousands of jailed Palestinian terrorists (guaranteeing more people to engage in episodes like October 7). It is beyond me how people imagine that a ceasefire that gets the hostages home can, in the long run, have net beneficial effects. It’s almost as they can’t see what this kind of deal would eventually entail.

I am not saying that Israel should abandon the hostages. Yes, of course their families are desperate and afraid; one needs only to hear them talk (and weep) to realize that.  But a short-term solution that continues the death and terrorism is no way to act: it is an emotionally-driven movement that in the end will surely result in even more grief. Remember that paying exorbitant ransoms for hostages, or losing a war so you can get hostages back, are actions that will only prompt Hamas to take more hostages in the future.

But is there a way to get the hostages released without forcing Israel to lose and continuing terrorism that will result in the taking of even more hostages? I’ve discussed this with Malgorzata at length, and she has suggested that pressuring Qatar, which is where many Hamas millionaires and billionaires live, might be a good strategy. If the U.S. said that it would remove its military base from Qatar (something that Qatar needs far more than the U.S.) unless Qatar kicked out its resident Hamas members and confiscated their money (Qatar itself is a source of funds for Hamas), then that kind of pressure just might produce what all right-thinking people want: an unconditional surrender of Hamas, its removal from power, and the release of the hostages. Malgorzata added, “It would be even better to arrest Hamas leaders in Qatar for terrorism and threaten them with extradition to Israel for trial, though I’ve never seen anybody suggesting that.”

(As for what happens to Gaza after Hamas surrenders, there are a number of possibilities that I won’t go into here. But one of them is not the immediate creation of a Palestinian state.)

I don’t know how any person with a moral compass can support a group that kidnaps hostages and then kills them in cold blood. (Remember, most Palestinians support Hamas more than the Palestinian Authority, even in the West Bank.). But what people (including Biden and Harris) should be demanding now is the unconditional surrender of Hamas and release of the hostages, not demanding a cease-fire that just prolongs terrorism. (See this article arguing that those who blame Netanyahu for the hostage situation are actually playing roles envisioned by Hamas.)

The proper call at the moment, then, is not, “Bring them home,” but “Let them go!”

Here’s the IDF spokesman, Daniel Hagari, announcing the ineffably sad murder of the six hostages:

Anti-Israel protests begin on first day of class at Cornell

August 31, 2024 • 12:00 pm

I’m back in Cape Town, and preparing Kruger Post #1. In the meantime, have another read about college miscreants:

See below. I told you so, but this isn’t rocket science. Anybody with two neurons to rub together could have guessed the protest engine would rev up when classes begin again, for, especially at elite schools, students are more interested in enforcing what they consider Social Justice on others than engaging in learning.

The article below (click to read), written by Judy Lucas four days ago, was published in The Ithaca Voice, the local paper. Click headline to read:

An excerpt:

The spring semester at Cornell University ended with protests, as students erected an encampment on the Arts Quad to oppose the university’s ties to institutions supporting the Israeli state. The war in Gaza raged on through the summer, with reports of thousands of more lives lost. Cornell’s fall semester started much like its last one ended.

A crowd of about 150 student protestors at Cornell University marched into a campus dining hall Monday, the first day of classes, where speakers renewed the call for the university to divest from any institutions supplying weapons and support to the Israeli military in the war against Hamas, among a set of other demands first released earlier this year.

Have a look at the list of demands, especially the “land return” demand (#1) and the usual “and-of-course-we’re-not-to-be-punished” demand (#8).

Twenty minutes into the rally, seven university police officers entered the atrium of Klarman Hall and stood guard near the protestors. At the instruction of lead organizers, students joined arms to form a chain in order to resist interactions with police.

And the kicker: no IDs proferred when asked, and no punishment (bolding is mine, and it’s all bolded because it shows the cowardice of the Cornell administration).

Officers asked protesters to hand over their student identification cards to refer them to the university’s conduct office for potential disciplinary action. None of the protestors followed orders but no arrests were made. 

Have a tweet; this one has three videos and it’s just like the bawling we heard so often last year.

The unions, by and large all anti-Israel (are there any pro-Israel unions?), were part of the demonstration:

The Coalition for Mutual Liberation (CML), which represents the university’s activist organizations and the group responsible for organizing and maintaining the pro-Palestinian encampment on Cornell’s Arts Quad in April, planned Monday’s demonstration.

They were joined by representatives of the United Auto Workers Local 2300, the union representing about 1,200 university employees, including custodians, cooks and food service workers, who are currently on strike demanding an increase in wages and improved working conditions.

As usual, there’s illegal vandalism:

The morning of the demonstration, graffiti reading “Israel bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” was found, spray-painted in red, on the front facade of Day Hall, the university’s administrative building. The front door was also shattered.

Cornell’s Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina released a statement on behalf of the university Aug. 26. Malina wrote the administration was “appalled by the graffiti spray painted.”

“Acts of violence, extended occupation of buildings, or property damage (including graffiti) will not be tolerated and will prompt an immediate response from public safety,” Malina wrote. “Cornell Police are conducting a thorough investigation, and those responsible will be subject to suspension and criminal charges.”

Joel Malina is Cornell’s Vice President for University Relations, and if you think that anybody will be suspended or subject to criminal charges, I have some land in Florida to sell you.

Finally, the interim Provost and President sent out an email with dire warnings about what would happen to students who engaged in encampments:

Students involved in encampments would first receive a warning of their violation of the university’s policy. On a second violation, the student would receive a “non-academic temporary suspension.” After a third violation, a student would receive “temporary academic suspension.”

I guess to get a “permanent academic suspension,” you have to shoot someone.

This is only the very beginning. When asked for a comment, the University said bupkes. 

Cornell University has not released a statement or comment regarding the specific demonstration Monday evening during which university police officers were involved.

In response to an email from The Ithaca Voice requesting a statement regarding the protest, a media representative for the university said “We don’t have anything specific regarding yesterday afternoon’s protest.”

Have another tweet with two videos:

There are more invertebrates in Cornell’s administration than there are in one square meter of the bottom of Cape Town’s Harbour. But there’s one consolation. While Cornell’s administration is demonstrating its spinelessness, I seriously doubt that it will give in to any of the student demands.

h/t: Debi

On Gaza protests in the coming year

August 31, 2024 • 9:15 am

I think there’s little doubt that the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests will once again roil colleges campuses this coming academic year.  As protestors vow that they’ll continue their activities, legal or not, and as Israel continues to root Hamas out of Gaza, I fully expect more trouble come this fall.

So do colleges, which are at this moment preparing for such trouble by confecting new regulations and policies. We have two articles on this subject, one in the NYT (first below) and the other in the Times of Israel. Click each headline to read; if the NYT is paywalled, you can find the first article archived here.

Note about what’s below: Daniel Diermeier used to be the Provost of the University of Chicago; now he’s the Chancellor (equivalent to the President) of Vanderbilt University, where he’s still carrying out the Chicago Principles, including free expression and institutional neutrality. Indented text is from the press; text flush left is mine. An excerpt from the NYT about Diermeier’s address to this year’s entering class at Vandy:

Less than 10 minutes had passed before Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt University’s chancellor, told hundreds of new students what the school would not do.

The university would not divest from Israel.

It would not banish provocative speakers.

It would not issue statements in support or condemnation of Israeli or Palestinian causes.

Before the hour was up on Monday, he added that Vanderbilt would not tolerate threats, harassment or protests “disrupting the learning environment.”

As you see, Diermeier pulls no punches.

This month, Vanderbilt required all first-year undergraduate students to attend mandatory meetings about the university’s approach to free speech, with the hope that clear expectations — and explanations for them — would help administrators keep order after protests rocked American campuses toward the end of the last academic year.

“The chaos on campuses is because there’s lack of clarity on these principles,” Dr. Diermeier said in an interview.

Well, that’s one reason, and I didn’t hear his talk, but the universal hope in all of the new “solutions” to protests is based on the claim that students simply don’t understand how free speech works on campuses, including private ones like Chicago and Vanderbilt. An important difference between “college” free speech and speech in the public arena is that colleges can more easily create “time, place, and manner” restrictions so that while legal speech is allowed, it mustn’t interfere with the mission of the university: no sit-ins or trespassing, no loud megaphones that disrupt classes, no encampments to block access to parts of campus, no deplatforming of speakers.

The problem I see is that the protestors in many places already know about these restrictions, and are determined to violate them anyway. They regard this as a form of civil disobedience—but one that, unlike classical civil disobedience, does not accept any attendant punishment. Indeed, just a handful of protestors who violated university regulations last year received either civil or University punishment, so there’s no incentive to at least go through the motions of obeying free-speech regulations. From later in the article:

Even as some universities have prepared more rigorous rules and procedures, it remains to be seen how strongly or consistently they will be enforced. The lasting consequences of defiance are also murky. Officials nationwide ultimately dropped many of the criminal charges that protesters faced after the spring demonstrations, and school discipline is still pending for many students. Suspensions have often been lifted in the meantime.

This is why universities’ solution to bring more “clarity” to free-speech rules seems hopeless. The solution, I think, is simply to enforce the rules. 

University presidents used summer break to huddle with police commanders, lawyers, trustees and other administrators to rewrite rules, tighten protest zones, and weigh possible concessions to maintain, or restore, order. Many have studied universities that temporarily defused tensions by striking deals with protesters.

But so far, universities are signaling little overt interest in negotiations.

On Monday, the University of California’s president, Michael V. Drake, told campus chancellors to ensure that their policies included bans on unapproved encampments and “masking to conceal identity.” Columbia University, where contentious protests helped drive Nemat Shafik from her 13-month-old presidency on Aug. 14, is limiting campus access. Northwestern University said that students would receive “mandatory trainings on antisemitism and other forms of hate,” with more policy changes coming.

“The question is how do we get more consistent in the way we respond to these issues — and clearer about what the rules are and what the tiered responses will be,” said Richard K. Lyons, the new chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, a campus with one of the nation’s most robust records of protest. Dr. Lyons estimated that planning for demonstrations had consumed up to 15 percent of the summer for top administrators at Berkeley.

And there have been legal rulings that can force universities’ hands:

A series of recent court rulings, as well as investigations from Capitol Hill and the Department of Education, have created pressure on universities. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction this month that said the University of California, Los Angeles, could not allow protesters to block Jewish students from campus facilities. (Although U.C.L.A. initially warned that the ruling threatened to “hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground,” it decided not to appeal and said it would “abide by the injunction as this case makes its way through the courts.”)

Can you believe that UCLA defended the behavior of protestors to keep Jewish students away from their classrooms? Here’s a video of the blocking I remember at the time:

From an article on the UCLA ruling:

The complaint [by three Jewish students] alleges the protesters created a “Jew Exclusion Zone” where in order to pass “a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ view.” Those who complied with the protesters’ view were issued wristbands to allow them to pass through, the complaint says, which effectively barred Jewish students who supported Israel and denied them access to the heart of campus.

Wristbands! Oy vey!

Our own University, like Vanderbilt, did not divest nor tolerate the encampments for very long, though it did give the encampers what I consider an overly long grace period.

The University of Chicago’s own experience this year suggests that even those deeply held principles do not always prevent turmoil. In May, the university brought in the police to remove an encampment that violated its policy barring unapproved tents.

At any rate, the divisions on campus are now so deep, and the protestors so sure of their moral compass, that I see no rapprochement, no matter how much universities inculcate students with the First Amendment or campus speech regulations.

The solution, which is Diermeier’s is simple, just follow through with campus speech violations by enforcing the rules. In my view, students will be loath to participate in illegal protests if they know that they’re going to be suspended, expelled, or have a punishment noted on their college transcripts. For even more than the students want divestment and a ceasefire, they want their degrees, an untarnished academic record. and jobs. I’m still baffled why many universities are simply letting the protestors off scot-free.

The Times of Israel simply lets us know that more disruptions of campuses are in store (click to read):

An excerpt:

The Student Intifada, a growing coalition of pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist student groups, is making clear its intention to disrupt the fall semester on school campuses across the United States.

Across dozens of campuses currently opening their fall semesters, there are already calls for masked vigils in support of “Palestine.” Troublingly, many of the groups have gone from calling for demonstrations and encampments to condoning the use of violence and “the total eradication of Western civilization.”

Note that, as some like Douglas Murray have warned, the protestors are not simply anti-Israel, but anti-West and anti-Enlightenment. The article continues.

The Student Intifada’s roots can be traced to the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), founded in 1993 at the University of California Berkeley. However, it’s picked up followers since the war in Gaza and then again with the media attention on Columbia University following last year’s highly-covered student encampment.

It’s worth noting that not a single Columbia student, despite illegal occupation and trashing of a university building faced legal charges (which the Manhattan DA dropped), and nearly none of them (perhaps none at all) faced severe university charges including permanent suspension (many ‘interim suspensions” were rescinded). More:

With the National SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] as its guide, the movement isn’t limited to local SJP chapters. But it’s not so much the coalition’s reach that troubles some, but rather its refusal to engage with different perspectives.

“The movement is a belief cascade where those in the group compete with each other for acceptance. As they do that, their opinions become more and more extreme,” said William J. Bernstein, author of “Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups.”

Excuse my cynicism, but I don’t think introductory units on critical thinking, free speech, and civil discussion required for first-year students are going to solve this problem. More:

Across dozens of campuses currently opening their fall semesters, there are already calls for masked vigils in support of “Palestine.” Troublingly, many of the groups have gone from calling for demonstrations and encampments to condoning the use of violence and “the total eradication of Western civilization.”

Yep, all of Western civilization.

The Student Intifada’s roots can be traced to the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), founded in 1993 at the University of California Berkeley. However, it’s picked up followers since the war in Gaza and then again with the media attention on Columbia University following last year’s highly-covered student encampment.

. . . “Expect to see zero compromise”

With the National SJP as its guide, the movement isn’t limited to local SJP chapters. But it’s not so much the coalition’s reach that troubles some, but rather its refusal to engage with different perspectives.

“The movement is a belief cascade where those in the group compete with each other for acceptance. As they do that, their opinions become more and more extreme,” said William J. Bernstein, author of “Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups.”

“No matter how high their SAT scores were, they don’t have the critical thinking skills they need. They are incapable of putting themselves in other people’s shoes. They are utterly intolerant of other views,” Bernstein said.

. . . University leaders should expect the students to become more strident in their demands this fall, said Lauren Post, an analyst with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

“They are going to increase their efforts to drive Zionist institutions off campus. They are going to make the average Jewish and Zionist student increasingly uncomfortable. We can expect to see zero compromise from these groups,” Post said.

. . . . In a July 31 Instagram post, the University of Chapel Hill SJP appeared to back the right to use violence.

“We emphasize our support for the right to resistance, not only in Palestine, but also here in the imperial core. We condone all forms of principled action, including armed rebellion, necessary to stop Israel’s genocide and apartheid, and to dismantle imperialism and capitalism more broadly. The oppressors will never grant full liberty to the oppressed; the oppressed must seize liberty with their own hands,” the post said.

The Times of Israel also emphasizes the lack of sanctions for violators, again mentioning my school:

There were an estimated 3,200 people, not all of them students, arrested at colleges and universities last spring, according to the Associated Press. Most of the charges against students have since been dropped.

Other universities, including the University of Chicago and Harvard, withheld degrees from some pro-Palestinian students facing disciplinary measures for their part in encampments and protests. Many of them have since received their diplomas.

About those “nonstudents” demonstrating at many colleges, which also happened at Chicago, it’s a simple matter to ask for IDs, something that students at the U of C must produce on demand.  Then names can be taken and trespassers in unapproved demonstrations given the boot.

Two caveats. First of all, as always I am an exponent of free speech on all campuses, public and private.  I’m even at the extreme of those free-speechers who think that someone shouting “gas the Jews” on campus in a situation that isn’t likely to provoke violence should not be punished.  What I object to is students, with full knowledge, violating campus regulations and, by so doing, impeding the mission of colleges: access to learning. And I object to universities growling about this but doing absolutely nothing to the violators.

There’s a reason why speed traps work: those who speed do so at their own risk (and the risk of others), knowing that they’ll have to get a ticket and a fine. The result: if you know there are speed traps in an area, you slow down.

As an experiement on what happens when deterrence vanishes, read about Montreal’s Murray-Hill Police Strike in 1969. (This is also an object lesson for those who think that you can solve the problem of crime by getting rid of cops and using patrolling by locals.)

Second, I think students deserve a warning when engaged in illegal demonstrations before they’re disciplined.  The encampers in Chicago got several days of warnings before the cops took down the encampment (without a single person hurt) at 4:30 a.m. last May 7.  Those shouting down speakers or occupying buildings should get, say, ten minutes of warnings before the hammer comes down. Finally, there should be no illegal encampments: not a single tent stake should be driven into prohibited college ground without University officials saying, “Sorry, you can’t do that.”

By all means have introductions to free speech and moderated discussions of first-year students to teach them how free speech works, and why we have it. But that’s not enough. I’m stymied by the failure of universities to realize a simple principle of human behavior: if you give people meaningful punishment for doing something that’s prohibited, they will stop doing it. 

A regulation that’s no enforced is a regulation without teeth.