Anti-Semitism
April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Columbia University presents an extreme case of the rot infesting our major institutions — elite organs of higher education, corporate America, the mainstream media, the entertainment business, the legal profession, the teachers’ unions, and so on. We can learn from Columbia’s extremity. It highlights elements of the phenomenon that otherwise remain beyond our view. The rot at Columbia runs through the students, the administration, and the faculty of the university.
»
April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The silence of President Biden on the eruption of anti-Semitic “protests” on elite college campuses constitutes a disgusting sidebar to the unfolding story. He was asked about them yesterday as he shambled down a sylvan path in Triangle, Virginia. “I condemn the antisemitic protests,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” “Palestinians” widely support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the terrorist forces
»
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Columbia campus appears to have been taken over by the pro-Hamas kill the Jews crowd among the student body. Jessica Costescu rounds up the news in the Washington Free Beacon story “Columbia University Campus Unravels in Face of Escalating Anti-Semitic, Eliminationist Protests.” The New York Post reports “New anti-Israel tent city takes over Columbia University lawn days after NYPD raid as activists vow to stay ‘forever.’” In other words,
»
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Not wanting to be left out, anti-Semites at Yale are camping out to support genocide against Israel. They have made various demands on Yale’s administration. It will be interesting to see the result: it isn’t easy to get to Yale’s left. Here you see a depressingly large number of Yalies demonstrating: The climax came when they tore down the American flag: A mob of Yale students shout "VIVA VIVA PALESTINA"
»
April 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Working for then Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale in the summer of 1969, I went to hear the late Allard Lowenstein speak to a large group of interns. Lowenstein was serving his only term in Congress before he was gerrymandered out of his district. Lowenstein asked us to go back to our campuses, do our thing in opposition to the Vietnam war, and “eschew violence.” He said the word “eschew” several
»
April 20, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Ever since October 7, mobs of Muslims have taken over much of central London for kill-the-Jews rallies. The effect has been to make being Jewish in London increasingly dangerous. Things came to a head last Saturday when a group of Jews leaving a synagogue bumped into the Muslims’ weekly protest. One of that group, Gideon Falter, describes what happened: It was early afternoon, in central London, and I was with
»
April 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
It looks like the mob has taken control of Columbia University, SA style. The Columbia Spectator reports on the suspensions issued for for participation in Wednesday’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” One of Ilhan Omar’s daughters (Isra Hirsi) is among the suspended students. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree. The Spectator quotes Columbia undergrad Maryam Alwan, another one of the suspended students. Alwan told the Spectator that she
»
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Current events at Columbia may call to mind events at Columbia circa 1968. Before matriculating at Dartmouth in the fall of 1969, I joined a group of incoming freshmen who met to discuss Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice and Columbia undergrad James Simon Kunen’s just-published The Strawberry Statement. We didn’t take Cleaver’s book particularly seriously and Eric Hoffer did even less so. He caustically mocked it as Soul On Horse
»
April 18, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The evil that is now running rampant across our country is ostensibly directed at Israel, but Israel is only the pretext, a target of convenience. We have seen in recent months that “anti-Zionism” is merely a cover for anti-Semitism. If Israel disappeared tomorrow, the anti-Semites here, in Western Europe and elsewhere, wouldn’t miss a beat. But it doesn’t stop there. In Iranian and al Qaeda ideology, Israel is only the
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The unauthorized pro-Hamas/anti-Israel demonstration continues for a second day at the heart of the Columbia campus. Columbia authorities have called the cops. The pro-terrorist students want to put President Shafik to the test. As I wrote earlier today, Columbia authorities started asserting themselves and taking remedial action in anticipation of yesterday’s House Education Committee hearing. The hearing did some good even before it was held. UPDATE: NYPD have entered the
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Ilhan Omar elicited the testimony of Columbia President Minouche Shafik at the House Education Committee hearing yesterday that she had seen no “protests” at Columbia “saying we are against Jewish people.” See the video below at 0:40. Omar also regurgitated the canard that students had been attacked by “a toxic chemical substance.” That appears not to be the case. I think it might more accurately be deemed the raspberry statement.
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik skipped the December 5 House Education Committee Hearing on anti-Semitism at their institutions that disgraced the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. President Shafik was invited to the hearing, but she was otherwise engaged. She was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai. Some might say that she sensed stormy weather. Yesterday the committee reconvened to hear from President Shafik and
»
April 17, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
On August 2, 2023, Tablet editor David Samuels interviewed David Garrow, author of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a massive attack on Israel and committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. In light of those events, and the recent attack on Israel directly from Iran, consider some of Samuels’ own statements during “The Obama Factor” interview: I find Barack Obama
»
April 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
NRO staff reporter James Lynch embedded himself in the New York City edition of the April 15 Kill the Jews rallies staged by A15 around the United States on Monday. I wrote about the rallies yesterday in “From sea to shining sea.” NRO has published Lynch’s story in “‘Israel Is a Terrorist State’: Scenes from New York City’s Disruptive Anti-Israel Rally.” Lynch’s story reflects the hatreds coursing through the mob,
»
April 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Not from the river to the sea, but from sea to shining sea the Kill the Jews crowd was out in force blocking bridges and roadways around the United States yesterday. They did their thing in San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Seattle, and points elsewhere in the United States. In the heart of the country they temporarily shut down travel into Chicago O’Hare International Airport. For
»
April 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden paid his respects to Al Sharpton and his National Action Network yesterday. In prepared remarks read from his teleprompter (transcript here), Biden spoke virtually at NAN’s annual convention. At the top of his remarks, video below) Biden celebrated Sharpton: “Look, we’ve known each other for a long time. I’m grateful not only for your leadership and partnership but, quite frankly, more importantly for your friendship.” In his remarks
»
April 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward
It is hard to know which ivy league university is the most pathetic, but Yale always has a strong entry in the weekly sweepstakes. At first I thought this demand letter from Yale students to the administration was a fine effort at droll satire (it’s the bit about carbon emissions from the Gaza war on page 2 that made me think this was an attempt at comedy writing), but I
»
