Tim Walz Sides with the Supporters of Hamas

Hat tip JNS

On September 5, Tim Walz made another outrageous statement (while condemning Hamas) in which he claimed that the pro-Palestinian protesters who are running amok in our streets and on our campuses are acting, “for all the right reasons”. Just like his running mate, who tried to please both sides in her debate against Donald Trump, Walz is trying to straddle the fence. When Kamala Harris said in the debate that Palestinians rightly deserved dignity and their own state, I beg to differ. I also beg to differ when Walz says their thuggish supporters in the US are acting for all the right reasons.

https://www.jns.org/anti-israel-protesters-speaking-out-for-all-the-right-reasons-walz-says-in-michigan-radio-interview/

What happened last year on October 7 should have settled the debate for all time as to side is right and which side is evil. Instead, the far-left and the Islamists in this country have sided with Hamas. They have doubled down on their tactics of disruption and intimidation, not to mention outright anti-Semitism. Their recent encampments on campuses have worn out the patience of the American public, even the patience of our wimpy university administrators.

But Walz thinks they are protesting for “all the right reasons”. Like what, the destruction of Israel and the elimination of every last Jew in the Middle East, if not the world? To make every US campus uncomfortable and unsafe for Jewish students? They are supporting Hamas. Walz cannot condemn Hamas out of one side of his mouth while defending Hamas’ supporters out of the other side other side of his mouth.

This is the guy who watched Minneapolis burn as governor of Minnesota. For days, he refused to send in the National Guard when the  city's mayor was pleading for help. Walz’s wife later talked about how she kept the windows open so she could smell the burning tires.

Let’s be honest. Both Walz and Harris are on the side of the Palestinians, not the Israelis. It should also be added that Walz made this latest declaration in an interview with a Michigan radio station, no doubt kowtowing to Dearborn voters.

The guy is a total blowhard.

Is UC Berkeley Really Countering Anti-Semitism?

"Incoming students received expanded antisemitism education at Berkeley’s Golden Bear Orientation. RAs receive a “more intensive orientation process” for their education, while registered student organizations’ signatories “do a series of online trainings” that includes education on antisemitism and Islamophobia."

Campus Reform has an article on the efforts of UC Berkeley to counter anti-Semitism on campus. It largely centers around an interview with Gregg Drinkwater, director of the UCB Anti-Semitism Education Initiative by The Center Square. That includes a video on anti-Semitism, its history, and definitions of what constitutes anti-Semitism. Not surprisingly, anti-Semitism is coupled with Islamophobia for the sake of political correctness.

As for the video, while there are many positive points made, it skirts around the biggest problem in connection with anti-Semitism today. Yes, it discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yes, it mentions, almost in passing, how Europeans spread anti-Semitism in the Middle East as part of their colonization. Yet it ignores Islamic anti-Semitism. Centuries before the Europeans were meddling with Arab countries like Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and others, hatred of Jews (and Christians) was embedded in Islamic teaching, including the Koran. This dates back to the 7th century.

Similarly, there is no discussion of who is primarily responsible for the problem of anti-Semitism on university campuses, including UC Berkeley. There is no mention of Students for Justice in Palestine. There is no mention of the Muslim Students Association. There is no video of pro-Palestinian brownshirts disrupting Jewish events. There is no video of people like Amir Abdel Malik Ali screaming about "Zionist Jews" on campus and glorifying violence against "Zionists".

Just days ago, I posted an article questioning the makeup of the UC Irvine Center for Jewish Studies. I know less about Jewish Studies at Berkeley, but I have seen time and time again, a reluctance by entities like these to name the biggest purveyors of campus anti-Semitism, that is the pro-Palestinian rowdies.

They can have all the orientation and educational programs they want, but they will have limited effect. As long as UC Berkeley continues to allow the campus presence of Students for Justice in Palestine, as long as Jewish events are being disrupted by pro-Palestinian students and outside activists, as long as Jewish students are being bullied, insulted, and intimidated on campus, as long as invited speakers cross the line from mere criticism of Israel into out and out Jew-hatred, as long as professors like Hatem Bazian continue to teach at UCB, I have no faith in these so-called measures to counter anti-Semitism. UC President Michael Drake has announced measures against encampments and masks. That is well and good as long as it is enforced. I should note here that last year a lawsuit was filed against UC Berkeley for failing to protect its Jewish students on campus. For years, Jews on campus have complained about anti-Jewish harassment. What is long overdue is the removal of violent students and the professors who egg them on (i.e. Faculty for Justice in Palestine). This is not about free speech or lawful demonstrations. This is about violence, disruption, occupation, destruction, and the fomenting of Jew-hatred. You don't get to do that. 

The resumption of pro-Palestinian disruption this week at Columbia has clearly shown that now is the time to remove the troublemakers from campus permanently. It is now time to make our campuses, including UC Berkeley, safe for Jewish students and all students who are trying to study in a very difficult environment. It's time for them to be universities again.

UC Berkeley and "Dangerous Ideas"

UC Berkeley is overflowing with wacky professors with bad ideas. Two of the most well-known are the dean of the law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, of whom I  have often written, and Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, also appearing periodically on this site. Now they are featured in an article by The College Fix, as usual, spouting their wacky ideas. Reich thinks that Elon Musk has to be taken down-for his "dangerous ideas" (free speech). Chemerinsky has now apparently concluded that the Constitution needs to be revised and the Electoral College needs to be abolished.

Reich has always been full of wrong ideas. I truly think he has Marxist tendencies. No wonder he wants to eliminate Musk. This is a man who has shown more than once that he wants speech he doesn't agree with silenced.  

Similarly, Chemerinsky is always on the wrong side of everything, up until recently, denying campus anti-Semitism (he has now woken up.)  Chemerinsky was the first dean of the UC Irvine law school, which he molded into a training ground for leftist activists. He has done the same at UCB. And this guy is considered one of the country's foremost Constitutional experts! If Kamala Harris is elected, I predict he will be a front-runner for the next SCOTUS opening.

Let me be clear: While I think their ideas are crazy, I would never argue that they need to be silenced. Countered yes, but unlike Reich, I believe in free speech. We have laws that define what is protected speech and what is not. If Reich wants to shout from the rooftops that Elon Musk or the Tea Party (wherever they are now) should be silenced, that is his right, I suppose as long as he doesn't try to put that into action. 

As for Chemerinsky, he needs to think it through (thinking is his job, right?) If the Electoral College goes away, our elections will basically be decided on the East and West Coasts, and you know what that means. The left will be forever victorious, and we will have one party in power, the Democrats. (Maybe Chemo has, in fact, thought it through.)

And yes, the US Constitution was written centuries ago by dead white men, some of whom possessed slaves (who did not enjoy the protections of the Constitution). Yet, those same men who crafted the Constitution created a basis for future reform that would guarantee the rights of all-even if it took up to the 1960s). And unlike many countries that designed their own constitutions on ours, the US Constitution is not just a scrap of paper, ignored by dictatorial governments. 

So let Reich and Chemerinsky prattle on about their misguided ideas in op-eds, interviews, and the hallowed halls of Berkeley. We are free to counter them, ignore them, or laugh at them. Hopefully, that will be the common reaction.

Back to School at Columbia: Pro-Hamas Violence Returns

-NY Post

Today is the first day of classes at Columbia and the pro-Hamas protests and violence have already started. Masked protesters with Palestinian keffiyehs and flags are marching breaking through barriers, and fighting with the NYPD. Fox is reporting with video, but I don't know how long this report will be accessible. The NY Post is also covering the events. No doubt there will be similar problems at other universities. 

In the Fox video, you can see many Orthodox-looking  Jews marching in solidarity. These are members of the Neturei Karta, a radical sect, largely based in New York, that opposes the State of Israel and works with the very people trying to destroy the Jewish state. I have encountered them several times in California (at UC Irvine), and they are a bunch of despicable misfits. 

This is an excellent opportunity for Columbia and the city of New York to demonstrate a zero-tolerance policy. Any student who is arrested should be prosecuted and expelled. Arrests in themselves are meaningless unless followed up by actual prosecution. If Columbia and the city do not seize this opportunity, the campus will be ruled by the terror-supporting mobs and Jews will not be safe on campus.

Now is the time to act.

UC Irvine Crybabies Sue Over Suspensions

 

It seems that the administration at UC Irvine (home of the Anteaters) has finally grown a pair (or at least one). Five students who were involved in the encampment on campus before it was broken up by police have been suspended.  True to form, they have hired some radical lawyer and are suing the university. Campus Reform has the report here.

If I don't give two stars balls to UCI, it's because they only hand out suspensions. In my opinion, expulsions would be more appropriate. They don't tolerate this on-campus behavior in high school (at least when I was in high school 60 years ago). Why should universities tolerate this disruption, destruction, and intimidation of other students?

In my opinion, every student arrested at that encampment should be expelled. Every teacher arrested should be fired.

"It's not fair!"

Sweden: Report on Gun Violence

I often make the argument that it is useless to talk about anti-Semitism unless you are willing to name the perpetrators. That is not meant to label an entire ethnic or religious group of people as being Jew-haters; it is to educate people as to where the threat is mainly coming from. While anti-Semitism can be found in every group, not all groups represent the same level of threat, at least not at this point in history.

Similarly, it is useless to try and analyze criminal trends unless you are willing to name the perpetrators. Again, that is not meant to label entire groups of people as being criminals, but to adequately inform the public and address the threat.

That brings us to Sweden, which is experiencing historical levels in violent crime, including gun crimes. The government recently tasked the Crime Prevention Council to analyze gun violence in Sweden during the past two decades. The report is in, but curiously, no mention is made of the fact that the problem is mostly due to criminal immigrants. The topic of immigration and national background is not even mentioned.

The conservative news outlet, Samnytt, is asking why. They posed their questions to one of the authors of the study. The below Samnytt article is translated by Fousesquawk.

Crime Prevention Council (BRÅ): Why we avoid immigration in the report on shootings

Posted 14:20 (September 2, 2024

The Crime Prevention Council is being criticized for completely leaving out immigration and the origin of perpetrators in a new report on the evolution of gun violence in Sweden.

"There are certainly many things that influence how we didn't have the possibility of putting things into this report," says one of the authors of the report to Samnytt.

It is the government that has given the Crime Prevention Council the assignment of investigating how gun violence in the criminal environment has evolved, "since the middle of the (2000-2010) decade". Among others, "to analyze which factors that could have had importance for the shooting (numbers) within the criminal environment".

And during the past week, a 120-page report was presented entitled: "The increase in gun violence in Sweden". The number of shootings has sharply increased while the age of those possessing weapons has decreased, are two conclusions from the report which was reviewed by criminologist Manne Gerell.

"When we started the study, we believed that especially media noteworthy events would have had more importance for how gun violence has evolved up until the 2020s. But we have seen that it is who is shot that seems to have greater importance as to whether the shootings escalate, than how the shooting happened, "says Henrik Angerbrandt, one of the authors of the report, in a statement.  

Nothing about immigration

However, the reports says nothing about immigration or the perpetrator's ethnic or cultural origin. Something that, among other things, the former editorial writer for Svenska Dagbladet, Per Gudmundsson, points out on social media (platform) X.

"The BRÅ report is clinically freed from everything having anything to do with the immigration problem," he states and later adds: 

"I can't escape the feeling that BRÅ made a conscious choice. Unfortunately, that has consequences for which measures that are suggested, i.e., the usability for the client (the government!)" 

However, Henrik Angerbrandt thinks that the perpetrator's background is not considered of interest for the report.

"That's not the type of report we did. We have not looked at the individual level. We have not looked at foreign background, and generally, we have not looked at the socio-economic factor,"Angerbrandt tells Samnytt.

Impossible to have everything

Henrik Angerbrandt then points out that there was no possibility to include everything in the report on shootings, and that immigration was a factor that was skipped over this time.

"We are looking at an aspect of how gun violence has evolved. We are looking at how the criminal environment has changed in the weapons used. We are looking back 20 years in time, and it is impossible to give an overall picture of everything that happens over 20 years. There are certainly many things that influence what we don't have the possibility to include in this report. This is a contribution to the knowledge base," he says.

(Samnytt): -It's not just that many of those who commit shootings have foreign background, but also that many of the shootings are directed from abroad. You have a chapter entitled "Possible measures to reduce gun violence". Isn't it interesting that there are people in Turkey and Iraq who are ordering shootings in Sweden?

"I am a little unsure what you mean, but we are writing about a geographical proliferation and that people are abroad or have contacts throughout Sweden."

"The measures that we point out are general, so that it can be seen how the criminal environment is changing. We don't give any specific suggestions for measures, rather we follow up on whether what is being done is actually working. We point out that we have to be a little forward-looking in (our) work, and we have updated knowledge as to how the environment changes, as well as the availability of weapons, importation, and these types of questions. Within that also includes (the fact) that conflict-driven actors certainly can be abroad. We have to address them too, but exactly how that is to be done in cooperation with other countries we don't go into.

(Samnytt): - So it wasn't relevant, you believe, for this report to look at where the perpetrators come from?

"We don't have this basis in the report, and based on the assignment we have to see how gun violence has evolved in relation to criminal conflicts and the criminal environment," Henrik Angerbrandt responds.

Germany: Synagogue Banner Defaced

-Westdeutsche Zeitung

It is safe to say that anti-Semitism has reached its highest level in Germany since the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945. Angela Merkel's open refugee policy of 2015 has resulted in millions of people entering Germany from places like Syria, Afghanistan, and other hotspots. Most of the so-called refugees are young, unaccompanied men from Muslim countries. While not all of these newcomers bring anti-Semitic attitudes with them, many clearly do since it is embedded in Islamic doctrine. 

The result for Germany's Jews, though up until recently, thought they were living in a new Germany, has been catastrophic. Once again, they live in fear, especially since October 7, 2023.

To be sure, Germany has its share of disaffected youth, and some of them have joined Neo-Nazi or skinhead groups. Yet, there is little doubt that the great threat to Germany's Jews, like other countries in Western Europe, is coming from Muslim migrants and asylum-seekers.

Last night in Elberfeld, North Rhine-Wesphalia, someone cut out the Star of David from a banner at the town's Old Synagogue. The banner read, "Never again is now". How fitting.

The West Deutsche Zeitung has the story and is translated by Fousesquawk.

Bluelight

Old Synagogue meeting place: Star of David cut out of banner

Wuppertal- In the nighttime hours leading into September 1, an unknown perpetrator cut out a Star of David from a banner at the Old Synagogue meeting place in Elberfeld.

Caption: Police are investigating the cutting out of the Star of David. Banner "Never again is now".

In response to a question, this is confirmed by the police. They have filed a criminal complaint, and the investigation is ongoing. "Since the Hamas terror attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, the situation here in Germany and North Rhine-Wesphalia (NRW) has also significantly sharpened. The number of anti-Semitic incidents since then has significantly risen and remained at a high level," reported the Family and Integration Ministry in NRW in June in the annual report of the Research and Information Office of Anti-Semitism in NRW (RIAS NRW). Today, it is more urgent than ever to counter anti-Semitism across society.

Germany: Afghan Wedding Turns Into Mass Brawl

(File photo)

Last night, Germany observed its biggest wedding since 1945 when Hitler tied the knot with Eva Braun in his Berlin bunker. This time it was in Wuppertal, where an Afghan wedding got out of hand. A mass brawl broke out, and police were summoned. Five officers were slightly injured, and three Afghan celebrants were arrested.

-Westdeutsche Zeitung

The conservative German website, Freilich Magazin, has the exciting news and is translated by Fousesquawk.

Mass brawl at wedding: Afghan guests attack police

A wedding in Wuppertal ended in a mass brawl in which police had to intervene. Three Afghans were taken into custody, and there were several injured.

Editorial staff, September 1, 2024

Caption: During the intervention, several officers were injured by the wedding guests.

Wuppertal- At a wedding celebration of Afghan families in Wuppertal, a mass brawl broke out on Saturday evening, that resulted in a police intervention. Several guests got into an argument and went at each other with glasses and bottles. The police who were called were also attacked when they entered. That was reported by WDR (West Deutscher Rundfunk-West German Radio).

According to a report by a police spokesperson, the officers were attacked with punches, kicks, and bites. One participant also pulled a kitchen knife but did not injure anyone. Only with the use of tasers and batons could the situation be brought under control.

Three men ages 22-24, all of Afghan origin were taken into custody. They gave considerable resistance to being arrested. The police recorded the personal details of about 40 guests and ordered them to leave the premises. In spite of the attack, the 5 lightly injured police officers were able to continue their duties.

Two Jewish Students Attacked at University of Pittsburgh

Cathedral of Learning

On Friday evening, two Jewish students wearing kippas were walking down Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh past the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning building when they were allegedly attacked from behind by a 52-year-old man identified as Jarrett Buba. One of the students received cuts to the back of his neck from a glass bottle. Buba, who was wearing a keffiyeh, was restrained until police arrived and took him into custody. The FBI is investigating this as a possible hate crime, and Buba is sitting in the Allegheny County Jail.

"Mr Buba, meet your cellmate, Bubba."

UC Irvine: A New and Improved Jewish Studies?

At the University of California at Irvine, there is a bit of a controversy on campus over the university's effort to "expand" its Jewish studies. While there is no formal Jewish Studies department, there is something called a Center for Jewish Studies within the School of Humanities and History Department, and one can pursue a minor in Jewish studies, while certain associated faculty are listed as teaching Jewish studies-related classes. Up to now, some critics have charged that certain of these faculty members are anti-Israel activists. Critics have reportedly been assured by the Center that any mistakes of the past will not be repeated with this expansion. Yet, that assertion is also being challenged. 

In 2023, in conjunction with 4 million dollars in matching funds from other donors, Henry and Susan Samueli, probably UCI's biggest donors, pledged funding toward the expansion of the Center. It is my understanding that no matching funds were pledged and the Samuelis withdrew their pledge.

On June 5, 2024, Dean of Humanities, Tyrus Miller, issued a statement complaining about "misinformation" concerning 2 new hires to teach Jewish studies classes, replacing one lecturer who was a rabbi with Orange County Hillel (the Jewish student support center). Miller was reacting to complaints that both the new hires are strong opponents of Israel.

In this National Review article dated June 10, 2024, the lecturer who was replaced, Rabbi Daniel Levine, insisted that the change was intended to put more anti-Israel voices in the Center.  According to the article, Susan Morrissey, the head of the History Department, is reportedly a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine at UC Irvine.

On January 23, 2024, I attended a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel  "teach-in" at UC Irvine. One of the organizers, UCI history professor Mark LeVine, is listed as "associated faculty" for Jewish studies at UCI.  The moderator was the aforementioned Susan Morrissey.

As for the two new hires, they are identified in the article as Rachel Smith and Myriam Fitoussi. You can read their background in the above article. According to the article, both signed a letter last October calling for all Jewish Studies centers to demand a cease-fire in Gaza and accusing Israel of human rights violations in that war. I should note that there is a Margaux Fitoussi who signed the letter; I cannot say for sure they are the same person, but it appears her full name is Margaux Taylor Myriam Fitoussi. Another signee was Mark LeVine. I have heard LeVine speak many times on campus, always accusing Israel of human rights violations, and occupation, among other things. 

Finally, I note that one of the members of the Steering Committee for the Center for Jewish Studies, Irene Tucker, is listed as a signee of this letter issued by a group called Jewish Studies and Israeli Studies Scholars in May 2021. Below is an excerpt from the letter

"We also acknowledge that the Zionist movement, a diverse set of linked ethnonationalist ideologies, also was and is still shaped by settler colonial paradigms that saw land settlement as a virtuous means of solving political, economic, or cultural problems, as well as modern European Enlightenment discourses that assumed a hierarchy of civilizations and adopted the premise that technological progress and development of an ‘underdeveloped’ territory would be an unqualified good. These paradigms, as implemented by the Zionist movement and the state of Israel in twentieth-century Palestine, have contributed to unjust, enduring, and unsustainable systems of Jewish supremacy, ethnonational segregation, discrimination, and violence against Palestinians that have been forcefully condemned, including by Jews, Israeli citizens, and Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem. Israeli culture, society, and politics, moreover, continue to unfold on land whose majority Palestinian population the state displaced, whose lands it confiscated, and whose return it prevented during and after the 1948 war, and on lands that it has occupied and settled since 1967."

I want to make it clear (as a non-Jew) that those mentioned above have a right to their opinions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, as well as to express them publicly. I am not suggesting there should be a litmus test for a professor to teach in a Jewish studies program as to whether they support or oppose Israel and/or Zionism. Ideally, if a prospective professor has the qualifications, why not hire that person without even knowing his or her position on that issue-or any other issue? That's just my view, and some might disagree or think I am being naive. The reader will note that there are several names of associated faculty in the Center whose positions on Israel I don't know. For all I know, they may all be pro-Israel.

But here is my question: Is there a deliberate effort at UC Irvine to stack their positions with people actively opposed to Israel-some to the point of being activists? If this is the case (and I don't think UC Irvine is the only university where this is an issue), it would be troubling. We already know that Middle East studies departments in many universities lack diversity of thought when it comes to Israel. Are Jewish studies departments or centers simply going to become their allies marching in lockstep against Israel, say like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace? I think the question is valid and this issue at UC Irvine bears following.