Watching the idiocy on college campuses this week and seeing all the explanations for protests in favor of murderous Hamas, two tweets seem particularly on point. There’s the great David Burge (Iowahawk), who calls these outbursts “Hamas slumber parties,” and says, “This is like staging a pro-Nazi lunch counter sit-in and getting mad that people won’t treat you like you’re a modern-day Rosa Parks.” He attributes protests for the Intifada and slogans reading “from the River to the Sea” by numbskulls who have admittedly no idea what they are protesting as the result of baby-proofing houses. “There is,” he says, “no better educational experience for a child than finding out what happens when you stick a butter knife into an electrical outlet.”
I think he’s right. Helicopter parents who shield kids from the consequences of their actions have raised a generation of reckless, entitled, ill-educated brats. (I’d add to his admonition the habit of so many parents to spend evenings “helping” their kids with their homework. My view is they either do it or don’t and, if they don’t, they can learn the consequences.)
Elon Musk, another of those whose sage observations I endorse, says:
“The axiomatic error undermining much of Western Civilization is “weak makes right”. If someone accepts, explicitly or implicitly, that the oppressed are always the good guys, then the natural conclusion is that the strong are the bad guys.”
So Hamas engaged in the most brutal attack on a much stronger neighbor, and even before Israel's perfectly predictable response in defense of its own people, Hamas became worthy of sympathy and protection. The Israeli counterattack is falsely described as “genocide,” self-rule in Gaza is misnamed “occupation;” indigenous Jews are labeled “colonialists” and “occupiers,” while Arabs are mischaracterized as native to Gaza.
Add to the mix of explanations for what otherwise is inexplicable immoral conduct the mind-boggling ignorance of the protestors. Everywhere we see signs that "Gazan liberation is queer liberation." It’s a topsy-turvy world on American campuses. Homosexuality is illegal in Syria, Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Kuwait, and the West Bank. It’s not illegal in Israel, and homosexual Gazans have sought and received refuge there.
‘Queer are shamed and thrown out of the majority of Palestinian families. In a Palestinian state, they’d likely be thrown from the top of buildings. Even the most Westernized of Arab countries, Lebanon, saw its majority bash 10 lawmakers for presenting a legislation decriminalizing homosexuality (only decriminalizing, not even giving them any rights). U.S. college students have no idea what they’re talking about.”
Just as absurd are the feminists and transgenders for Hamas.
The protests and encampments have spread to a number of colleges, but the worst is Columbia University, and a close examination shows that it is a result of a horrible choice of president and a history of ignoring Jew hatred, of which the latest demonstration is a perfectly predictable outcome.
There’s no reason except the anti-merit DEI impetus for Nemat Shafik to have been named president of Columbia: Shafik “only has 1 well-cited publication in her life, in Oxford Econ Papers 1994. This paper is lifted almost entirely from a 1992 report coauthored with a consultant not credited in the publication. This is wholesale intellectual theft, not subtle plagiarism.”
Khymani Jones, one leader of the Columbia encampment who was extensively quoted as saying, “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and talked about killing Jews, was finally banned from campus, although it remains unclear whether he was expelled or suspended. But in a disciplinary hearing in January, the university was aware of these statements and did not act. Before he was shown the door, Ilhan Omar went to the Columbia campus and shook hands with him; her daughter hugged him. The only reason he was finally kicked out was because his threats became more widely publicized. When he was finally at least suspended, he claimed it was because he is black and queer.
Don’t blame the police -- Columbia has prevented them from removing the encampment. The NYPD Chief of Patrol responded:
The pure hate, antisemitism, and overall vile language I have witnessed recently is simply disgusting. I could not begin to even know how this makes a person feel, a family or a friend. Hate has no place in our society from anyone! It should be condemned by all immediately. The NYPD is committed to protecting everyone from hate, especially our Jewish brothers and sisters. Trust me, if we could throw handcuffs on anyone who peddled in this -- we would do this all day every day. End of story! We understand the frustration, we stand with you and the NYPD is always ready. We demonstrated this last week when our Mayor and PC ordered swift action for the removal of school protesters. Unfortunately there are certain things we can’t control, thus it’s incumbent for the effected institutions to take a stand and enforce their rules! Actions have consequences! No more suspensions let’s try expulsion of these entitled hateful students. Pack your belongings and get out! Let’s remove faculty and staff who have replaced their educational licenses for a license of hate -- Your fired! Your frustration and despair should not be directed toward the City of New York. We did not shut down your identification and deny your entry. We don’t govern private property nor school rules while being bound by free speech. The Mayor, Police Commissioner and the NYPD will never relent in the pursuit of public safety and, here and now, protecting our Jewish community….
By contrast, in Washington D.C., George Washington University asked the local police to remove the protestors. They were prepared to do so, but Mayor Muriel Bowser, a huge fan of BLM and believer in the George Floyd fable, ordered the force to stand down.
Are these protests organic and spontaneous? Of course not -- they are being funded by George Soros and a variety of foundations and various NGOs which in a lawful world would have long ago lost their tax breaks. The occupation of college campuses across the U.S. is a well-organized and funded operation led by Soros-backed groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). The Soros-backed NGOs pay outside agitators $7800 and campus activists $3600 each, according to a report. Half of the violent protestors who have been arrested nationally are not students but NGO-affiliated agitators. Hamas is an internationally recognized terror group, and with the help of these NGOs, it is recruiting and radicalizing thousands of students across the country.
The current students -- drawn from organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Within Our Lifetime (WOL), and others -- have been filmed calling for not only the killing of Israelis and Jews but also the dissolution of the US government and acts of terror on American soil.
These organizations have maintained both influential and radical friends, NGO Monitor explained in its new report released on Thursday, noting that JVP -- a fringe anti-Israel group that has often joined forces to coordinate events with SJP -- has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Other donors to JVP include the Open Society Policy Center and the Kaphan Foundation, among others.
As for SJP, one of its founders, Hatem Bazian, is also a co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an advocacy group that, according to a landmark report last year by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian Territories.” AMP is a growing power player in the US Democratic Party and has led several legislative initiatives aimed at eroding Democratic support for Israel.
NGO Monitor also named in its report Within Our Lifetime, a New York City-based group headed by a former City University of New York (CUNY) student who once threatened to set a Jewish student’s Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sweater on fire while he wore it. Since Oct. 7, WOL has openly cheered Hamas’ atrocities as the “right to resist zionist [sic] settle violence” and “Resistance in all its forms. By any means necessary” — an apparent endorsement of Hamas’ abductions and sexual violence against Israeli women…
Another group named in the new report, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), supports a network of allied groups, including AMP, JVP, and WESPAC. USCPR has received immense financial support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has awarded it at least $355,000 since 2018…
According to NAS’s findings, JVP as of last year had received $480,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund… and the Tides Research Fund, a sponsor of Black Lives Matter, has given the group at least $75,000 since 2019... Additionally, Palestine Legal, a lawfare group founded in 2012 to support campus BDS groups like SJP, is the beneficiary of generous funding from Tides Foundation…
There’s anecdotal evidence that, aside from the reputational costs to institutions that have abetted or tolerated this behavior, they are losing donors and applicants. (Not only are applications for new students down, but Brandeis and Yeshiva University have extended the deadline for transfer applications for students who wish to leave these cesspools.) Hedge Fund CEO Bill Ackmanpredicts substantial litigation and financial loss for schools that indulge in this behavior by faculties and students:
Recent events at @Harvard, @MIT, @Columbia et al couldn’t provide more prima facie supporting evidence for the various Title VI and class action lawsuits against the universities. The complaints just need to be updated to include the new facts. The plaintiffs are going to have a field day in court. The universities’ unwillingness to follow their own stated rules has emboldened the protesters to amplify their anti-Israel, antisemitic, and anti-American messaging and actions. It’s remarkable that even the likely severe economic costs of the litigation doesn’t motivate the administrations and governing boards to address the situation. That’s likely because there are no shareholders and it is therefore other people’s money. Yet another failure of the non-profit model. I am surprised the state attorneys general have not gotten involved as they are supposed to be important ‘regulators’ of non-profits. While it doesn’t happen often, board members of nonprofits can be held personally liable for their failures as fiduciaries. I would not be surprised to see that happen here.
In a better world, the White House, Department of Justice, and FBI wouldn’t leave it to private litigants to redress actions targeting students and faculties for their religious beliefs and endorsing anti-American mayhem. In the interim, we can ridicule the hypocrisy of institutions that just recently punished students for misgendering others or for wearing sombreros to Halloween parties.
