Accelerated Ugly
Israel, Hamas & Mideast Mayhem
This issue will focus on the Israel-Hamas conflict as that dominated the news cycle and holds substantial implications for the future.
I admit, for someone who trains and teaches others on Deep Work Flow and ignoring the noise around to focus on what’s important, it’s been difficult to focus on my normal daily activities this week.
Sovereigns and Americans, the world is changing fast, and not always for the better.
This isn’t hyperbole or copywriting - it's a warning from someone who's seen the edge and has been on point calling it out for more than 7 years now.
The events we saw and continue to see should rattle you.
War is evil, and it requires looking into the abyss - both our own and the greater world around us.
For the sake of your family and future, please educate yourself.
Watch the unwatchable. Look at the videos and stills of terror and hatred. See the unseeable.
And then remember our Nation, our freedoms, and our liberties, and what it took to secure and defend those.
Now more than ever, the pressure is building. The stakes? Our way of life.
I can't stress enough: The threat isn't imminent; it's already here.
Prepare, defend, and be trained. Expect to self rescue.
Lightning Round
First, let me hit a brief round up of other news. Then we’ll get to the Israel-Hamas conflict which will mostly be a highlight reel of the best I’ve read on the web and elsewhere.
House Speaker
In the race to be new House Speaker, Steve Scalise has dropped out. I like Steve, but anyone wearing a mask (and I know he wears it because he is immunocompromised from cancer treatment) I don’t want publicly representing my country or party. Optics matter.
That leaves Jim Jordan who now has to pass the full House floor vote. We don’t have time for theatrics and paralysis. The world has gotten significantly more dangerous in the last 3 years thanks to the incompetent and corrupt leadership in the White House.
Let’s go Repubs, shoot him thru. We’ve got bigger problems to deal with.
However, I do have a better idea down below…
DeSastrous DeSantis
Candidate Ron DeSantis continues down the path of self-destruction. Post attack, Donald Trump gave a speech and in Trump style, was clumsy about some of the messaging but was on point with illustrating the geopolitical chess board. He smacked Netanyahu for leaving Israel vulnerable and also castigated him for underestimating Hezbollah.
DeSantis’ press team used the opportunity to cut a clip or two out of context and make it seem like Trump was supporting or praising Hezbollah and attacking Netanyahu.
From a political perspective, it’s probably his final mistake. I’ve been open to another candidate as I think Trump has weaknesses that make it harder to win in the general election and I have real questions about his staffing decisions and commitment to win for anyone but himself. Nevertheless, I have always said I would support him in the general election as he is 100x better than any Democrat and 10,000x better than Biden.
But trying to position the greatest friend America and Israel have ever had and the man who gave us the Abraham Accords and relative peace in the middle east and elsewhere as pro-Hezbollah is beyond the pale.
Way to read the room Ron.
Trump-Vivek or someone else in the VP position is now the only game in town. Conservatives, NeverTrumpers, independents, libertarians and anyone else who values a future for this country better hold their nose and get behind it. No one’s perfect. He’ll be the candidate and is the only chance we’ve got to reverse this madness.
Covid
The bell continues to toll.
On the good news front, only 2% of Americans have taken up Pfizer and Moderna on their latest clotshot. Here’s the Epoch Times on the US public health torching its credibility with its support for school closures, toddler masking, vax mandates, not asking pharma for an RCT, & other anti-science nonsense.
And with a stroke of a pen, AB2098, California's COVID medical censorship law, has been quietly repealed by the very same people who had ridiculously wanted it in place.
Israel-Hamas
I’m not going to be able to add substantially to the sheer volume of solid posts out there on the topic. If you’re a prolific reader and skilled in checking your biases, you likely know most of what I am about to post.
My essential stance is this - there is no real “both sides” or “proportion” to this conflict.
Just a reminder of the differences between Israel and Hamas (and the majority of Palestinians who support them1):
Hamas is indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians, taking hostages, and killing women and children. Israel will respond with calculated strikes against Hamas military targets where civilians get caught in the crossfire bc Hamas uses them as human shields.
20% of Israel’s population is Muslim. 0% of Gaza’s population is Jewish.
If Hamas stopped fighting, there would be peace. If Israel stopped fighting, their country would no longer exist.
Sam Harris may have lost his mind over the last 7 years due to Covid and TDS, but he sums things up concisely here:
“The truth is that there is an obvious, undeniable, and hugely consequential moral difference between Israel and her enemies. The Israelis are surrounded by people who have explicitly genocidal intentions towards them. The charter of Hamas is explicitly genocidal. It looks forward to a time, based on Koranic prophesy, when the earth itself will cry out for Jewish blood, where the trees and the stones will say “O Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.” This is a political document. We are talking about a government that was voted into power by a majority of Palestinians.
The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there widespread Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews.
And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies. And this is something I discussed in The End of Faith. To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.
What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted? Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want. The Israeli army could kill everyone in Gaza tomorrow. So what does that mean? Well, it means that, when they drop a bomb on a beach and kill four Palestinian children, as happened last week, this is almost certainly an accident. They’re not targeting children. They could target as many children as they want. Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel edges ever closer to becoming an international pariah. So the Israelis take great pains not to kill children and other noncombatants.
What do we know of the Palestinians? What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself. We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen.
There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could. Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not. But vast numbers of them—and of Muslims throughout the world—would. Needless to say, the Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, have a history of targeting innocent noncombatants in the most shocking ways possible. They’ve blown themselves up on buses and in restaurants. They’ve massacred teenagers. They’ve murdered Olympic athletes. They now shoot rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. And again, the charter of their government in Gaza explicitly tells us that they want to annihilate the Jews—not just in Israel but everywhere.”
While this may seem like New Year's Eve to Jew Haters right now based on the celebrations I've seen, here's a few more reminders:
Israel, like any country, has a right to defend itself.
Palestinians have been offered their own state and peace 5 separate times over the last 30 years.
Every time they've said “no” and responded with terror.
These attacks won't be condemned by Palestinians, they will be celebrated.
When you indoctrinate children and teach them things like "Jews feast on your blood and are the devil's spawn" in school, this will continue.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir summed it up best: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
If you're interested in delving into the historical origins of this conflict spanning back 75 years or more and a way forward, I'm fully open to that dialogue.
But, as a starting point, could you acknowledge and condemn the inhumane brutality and undeniable acts of terror involved (including the appalling harm inflicted upon women, children, and the elderly who were brutally butchered and burned alive) so I know you have at least a basic understanding of morality?
And let me be even more clear, the people who sympathize, support and side with these terrorists and this evil have no place in our country. Period. They lack the basic foundational values and humanity that qualifies them to live in this country.
Take the necessary steps to rid our country of them before we commit suicide like Great Britain, France and many other Western European countries who also imported millions of these terrorist supporters. Europe faces an existential threat, and it may be too late for them unless they take the type of serious steps suggested by Douglas Murray below (1min to 5 min is the gist).
As I've written about for years in my weekly letter, thousands if not millions who despise our way of life have come across our border unchecked under Biden. You still have time to prepare and counter what is to come.
My final point - these things don't happen in a vacuum.
This is a direct result of the incredibly weak US leadership and the nursing home patient currently in the White House.
Zero chance this, Ukraine or the border catastrophe happens under Trump's watch.
And let's not forget the $6 Billion Biden just gave and the billions Obama gave to Iran, one of the largest state sponsors of terror and Hamas' benefactor.
Or the ten millions illegals who have been invited in (some of whom are almost certainly terrorists and sabotage cells trained for murder and mischief as I've warned about), the sky high inflation destroying the American economy and middle class, and the economic and social genocide committed under the guise of fighting a Pandemic (that we bore a large degree of responsibility for creating).
These catastrophes are all interlinked, and they will get worse as long as the current hostile US Regime occupies the White House.
Act accordingly.
Close the border and begin the deportations before we see multiple Hamas-type acts of civilian slaughter here in the US.
You don’t need to be Jewish or Israeli to be outraged by this pure evil. You only need to be human.
I’m constantly blown away by the depth of ignorance and denial among even smart people who should know better, and especially them.
So many are calling for a peaceful solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. But it takes two to peace, and one side (and only one side), or at least its popularly elected leadership (Hamas), explicitly and emphatically rejects even any attempt at a peaceful resolution to the crisis, insisting instead that “jihad” is the *only* option (see Article Thirteen of Hamas’s Charter - “There is no negotiated settlement possible. Only Jihad.”).
All of those expressing support for a Hamas-led Palestine are literally (knowingly or not, but often disgustingly the former) expressing support for holy war against the Jews. We see you.
For a brief background for those not familiar with the history, in 2006 Hamas was elected in Gaza, a former flourishing town that was turned over to the Palestinians in 2005 for self-rule and then transformed into a terrorist hellscape where charitable contributions and funds were used to buy weapons and train for terror instead of building hospitals, schools and infrastructure.
And nearly half the population cheers for and celebrates this barbarism. Hamas deliberately uses hospitals and buildings for shelter and missile launch pads while using civilians as shields. Of course innocent and civilian life should be spared to whatever degree possible.
But that's the difference between the two sides. The Palestinians have been offered peace, land and statehood at least 5 times in the last 30 years and have responded with terror every time.
Hamas and other pro-Palestinian terror groups deliberately target innocent civilian men, women and children while Israel does what they can to avoid civilian casualties, often at a loss of their own life.
No other country in the world has ever exhibited the restraint they have shown including my own country. Even in the current conflict, they could bomb Gaza into non-existence and not sacrifice another Israeli life but haven't done so and have lost dozens of additional soldiers and likely hundreds more during the coming ground war.
Civilians were given ample time to evacuate and warned them off from certain areas that would be targeted. If Arab nations that own 98% of the land in the Middle East gave half a sh*t about these people as they claim, they could easily accept and integrate them as refugees but they've been crystal clear for 50 years they want nothing to do with them.
The situation is complex and deeply rooted, with no straightforward solutions. I pray for a swift resolution with minimal harm to innocent lives and measures to prevent such events in the future.
Open Air Prisons - A Quick Counter
One of the persistent pieces of propaganda you’ve probably heard this week is Gaza is an “open air prison.”
Let’s be clear, if you’re whole stated goal (Article 13 of Hamas charter) is the elimination of Israel and Jews and the establishment of a global Caliphate) and you’ve committed barbaric atrocities any chance you’re given, you probably belong in prison (or dead).
The actual reality is Gaza is far from an ‘open air prison’.
As someone who’s been a resident and visited multiple actual open air prisons, I don’t recall many prisons that have 5 star hotels, 25 miles of beachfront and ample open markets and stores.
And are we really going to pretend that Canadians, Americans, Europeans or Israelis wouldn’t turn that place into a flourishing city like a mini-Dubai within 12 months (like it used to be when Israel was in control) under those very same conditions?
The above isn’t intended to minimize the suffering of the average Gazan. Like any other corrupt theocracy, it’s the people who suffer the most while Hamas’ leadership enjoys vast wealth and luxuries in Qatar, England and elsewhere.
The blame for the current conditions rests squarely on their feet.
Note to my Fellow Conspiracists & TruthTellers
Anything you read this week is subject to the fog of war and should be vetted in accordance with the track record of those making the claims.
So by all means - be skeptical and demand proof. The truth matters. But don’t be so overly skeptical that you refuse to believe what’s in front of your eyes. Never in history has this level of barbarism and war crimes been captured in real time.
In fact, we saw more pictures and videos of real-time war and terror in the first 24 hours than we’ve seen in 18 months in Ukraine.
So as uncomfortable as it might be, look at the photos, listen to the stories. I’m confident you will see there are not ‘two sides’ that are equal morally, legally or politically.
And to the people I align with on this issue, by all means be loud and vocal. But please thoroughly vet all information before posting it. There is no moral difference between beheading a baby and burning it alive or murdering one in cold blood. But if you lead with the first and it turns out to be untrue, all you do is hurt your position. So be clear and defend the truth and humanity, but please be accurate as well.
On the flip side, if your best argument is that dead babies were ‘only’ murdered and not beheaded, you’ve not only lost the argument. You’ve lost your mind.
And for those wailing about “proportion”, on 9/11 over 3000 Americans were murdered. In response, we killed close to a million Iraqis and Afghans. And because of population differences, the 1300 Israeli and other citizens that were murdered that day is the per capita equivalent of over 45,000 Israelis.
No other country has acted with the restraint Israel has shown to date, and it’s cost them dearly in lives. There’s no good analog, but if Mexico launched thousands of rockets into the South and killed 45,000 Americans, I’m sure people wouldn’t be calling for a cease-fire or proportional response.
The responsibility for the tragic death of innocent Palestinians rests squarely on the shoulders of Hamas and the Palestinians who elected and support them. There is no chance for peace while they still exist. That’s the ugly truth.
Why Attack?
David Sachs sums up my thoughts on why would Hamas attack.
“What is the goal behind the terrorist attack on Israel?
In my view, Iran, the primary sponsor of Hamas, is attempting to provoke an overreaction from Israel to thwart economic and defensive agreements between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Iran's larger aim is to prevent its geopolitical adversaries from establishing a formal regional alliance.
Just last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) said that Saudi Arabia was moving "closer" to a historic normalization deal with Israel, potentially involving a military pact with the United States, requiring US defense in exchange for diplomatic ties with Israel.
Saudi Arabia is also seeking advanced American weaponry similar to what the UAE received in its normalization agreement with Israel, including F-35 fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and precision-guided missiles.
Discussions even include the possibility of Saudi Arabia developing a civilian nuclear program with US assistance.
The India-Middle East-Europe-Economic Corridor (IMEC) is another significant development announced at the G20 last month.
IMEC establishes a trade route between India and the EU bypassing Iran, with Saudi Arabia and Israel playing key roles.
The US views IMEC, which includes a shipping route connecting India with the UAE and a rail network connecting Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, as a tool to formalize economic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
MBS hopes the Saudi-Israeli deal will "reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians."
"For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part."
Before the Hamas attacks, Saudi Arabia and Israel were moving closer to a historic normalization deal.
That deal will be extremely challenging, if not impossible, with war raging between Israel and Hamas and innocent Palestinians caught in the middle.”
One final note before we move onto the other media worth reading/watching.
Question #1: Does Israel have the right to exist?
If your answer is no, there’s not much you’ll read here that will change your mind. If yes, proceed to question #2,
Question #2: When will the global community insist that neighboring Arab nations and Palestinian leaders fully recognize and peacefully coexist with Israel as a sovereign state within its designated territory in the Middle East? This entails not only verbal commitments but also comprehensive changes in education, representations on maps, constitutional amendments, ensuring religious freedoms, and responsible use of military and police forces.
Such recognition encompasses the freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest.
With mutual recognition and peaceful coexistence, the region could prosper immensely. The Palestinian people would achieve many of their aspirations, albeit with the understanding that the land is to be shared with the Jewish community.
Once this foundation of mutual respect and recognition is firmly established and upheld, other issues can be addressed and negotiated. It's crucial for international stakeholders to move beyond mere discussions and actively work towards realizing this vision as Trump did heroically during his first term.
This is more fantasy than reality though due to the blood feuds and lack of rationality, primarily on the Palestinian side.
The Reality
The ugly truth again is that not a single Arab nation wants anything to do with these people beyond using them as a pawn to attack and marginalize Israel.
The Palestinian issue has been an anchor on the Middle East for nearly 75 years. In more recent years, Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt all offered to take a small number of refugees. That experiment lasted less than a decade, as Kuwait forcibly ejected 200,000 of them in 1991 for their political activities and Jordan was nearly overthrown by the refugees they accepted after they tried to kill the King twice. Egypt so despised the ones they let in that they also booted them and then built a passage-proof wall 20 feet above and underground to prevent any others from coming in (I guess walls do work Dems…).
No, the ugly reality is that there may not be a military solution to the conflict. At least one that fits in with 21st century sensibilities. Short of JDAM’ing the entire place and turning it into glass (not gonna happen), any military solution will involve too many Israeli and Palestinian deaths and eventually we will return to the ‘mow the grass’ stalemate that has existed since 2006 when the Gazans took a flourishing, beachside city and turned it into a terrorist hellscape.
So sadly, no solution exists without immense political and legal pressure from other Arab nations to get Palestinians to give up their guns and suicide vests. Arab nations are some of the wealthiest nations on Earth and clearly the US doesn’t care about financial restraints as they’ve donated $150B to Ukraine with little to show over the past year and a half.
It's imperative for stakeholders from various nations and religious backgrounds to recognize the potential of the Middle East. It's poised to emerge as a region analogous to Europe - prosperous and cosmopolitan, undergoing significant advancement. However, two primary obstacles hinder this vision: 1) The challenges posed by Iran's current state and 2) finding a resolution to the Palestinian situation.
America should do everything they can to return to the policies of Donald Trump in this region who made remarkable gains. Trump pushed the Abraham Accords through, helped normalize relations between Israel and numerous Arab countries, and was on the cusp of repairing the damage that the Obama administration did in Iran (here’s a good podcast with Jared Kushner who played a key role in bringing prosperity and peace to the region but had his character and competency assassinated bc Orange Man Bad).
Obama bears most of the responsibility for the disaster that is Iran and the current issues. The Iranian government was on the verge of collapse from US sanctions and pressure before Obama decided to help them with their nuclear program and started airlifting pallets of cash to the Mullahs.
The good news is, the Iranian people are resilient and have a foundation of Western liberalism from their time before the Ayatollah Khamenei that the next Administration can build on.
Right now, it’s critical that we address the numerous horrific problems the current administration has created in 3 short years. We went from no inflation, low gas prices, a closed border and no wars to catastrophic collapse on nearly every front and the potential for 3 active wars (Ukraine, Mideast, Taiwan) in what could only be called World War 3.
These are existential issues. We don’t have the luxury of waiting another 15 months to address them.
Republicans should nominate Donald Trump as Speaker.
Biden and Harris should resign immediately.
Trump takes the Oath of Office.
Country over party.
Do it now.
Here’s a few other things worth reading or watching on the topic:
The great Victor Davis Hanson with a must-read threepeat:
They Kill while our Government Tweets and Deletes
An Annotated Guide to American Middle East Madness
Gareth Cliff with a fantastic summary of the current thing: Know Thine Enemy
I am not a Jew and I’m not a citizen of Israel. I haven’t even visited Israel. I don’t trace my religion back to a holy site in Jerusalem and I don’t have a problem with Arabs or Muslims or Christians. I’ve read about Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon; the Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Ottomans; I know about the British, the Balfour declaration, Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. I know a bit about the Six-Day War and the Intifada. I might not have any personal stake in the Holy Land, but humanity certainly does – and I’m a human being.
The women, men, children, elderly people and soldiers who were kidnapped, tortured, raped, humiliated and murdered on Saturday by Hamas in sovereign Israel were human beings too.
Those who did it to them are not.
Imagine what kind of rational and ethical gymnastics you have to do to justify the cold-blooded murder of teenagers at a music festival; or watching a child, perhaps 5 years old, being prodded with a stick and made to cry for his mother in Hebrew while children of a similar age laugh and mock him? We don’t know that child’s fate and for all we know what followed may have been much worse. It’s depraved. To even enter a conversation about these disgraceful facts with a rehearsed retort about territory or Gaza being an “open-air prison” reeks of moral bankruptcy.
If you wail and scream about your land, dignity, rights, oppression and poverty but are willing to murder, rape, kidnap, torture or humiliate children; then I don’t have to listen to your reasons. When the video footage, photographs and stories of Saturday’s carnage come not from “Israeli propaganda” but from the Hamas terrorists themselves, then how am I to read anything else into it but that you want credit for these atrocities? You want me to know you did it. You want me to know you are proud of it. You want me to see you for who you are. Well, I do.
So, if you swarmed the Israeli Embassy in London, waving Palestinian flags and calling for genocide; if you went down to Times Square to celebrate a victory for decolonisation against “apartheid Israel”; if you sang along to “gas the Jews” chants at the Sydney Opera House or hung a “one settler, one bullet” Palestinian flag over Grayston bridge in Johannesburg then you’re telling me who you are. Well, I see you – and you’re my enemy.
I’m one of those people who believe civilisation is a real thing, and I’ve resisted the poison of moral relativists in the humanities departments of universities across the west who think that being nuanced about the idea of civilisation versus barbarism is a signal of intellectual prowess or critical self-reflection. Upon even a cursory investigation of these people or their positions, you will find every sign of pedestrian intelligence and self-absorbed navel-gazing, combined with a fetishisation of victimhood and always concomitant humourlessness. They too, are my enemies.
It is always interesting to note that only western liberal democracies tolerate and give succour to the most heinous arguments and positions in public protests. You couldn’t picket on the side of quite laudable things like education for girls in Taliban Afghanistan, gay rights in Syria, or against the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. The Ayatollahs of Iran wouldn’t allow women to protest the hijab there under threats of violence. But London, New York, Sydney and even Johannesburg will embrace marches where people actively call for genocide. This is not how allies behave.
Perhaps when the dust has settled we can examine the insidious links between Anglo-American leftism and antisemitism, between Europe never reckoning with what happened in the holocaust and their growing Muslim populations, and between ignorant regimes like mine in South Africa and their determination to stand alongside the worst human rights abusers in the Middle East.
For now, it’s no big mystery that this has nothing to do with the existence of the State of Israel and everything to do with Jew-hatred – that great, festering wound in the side of humanity from which all prejudice flows. It has been there for thousands of years and every time we think it has healed, some monstrous collective claws it open again.
Hamas aren’t hiding the ball. Their leader, Ismail Haniyeh (safely skulking in Qatar) made this clear. He celebrated dead Jews, not territory won, nor Gazan lives saved.
I’m afraid there are only two sides in a war – your allies and your enemies. On September 11th 2001, I knew whose side I was on. I feel the same today.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams lays it down. Perhaps the first intelligent thing he’s said, but appreciated nonetheless. This is what moral clarity looks like.
More clues and advice from my friend James Altucher:
“It seems like the vocabulary of anti-semitism has expanded. As if everyone read the same bathroom wall at the Gaza Bus Terminal.
It used to be if someone simply said "they" followed by "Hollywood" I had a clear idea. But now it's a lot easier.
If you have a friend who uses words like:
ceasefire
de-escalation
colonizers
innocents
electricity
humanitarian
proportional
cleansing
Then they probably hate you.
Any words I'm missing?
Oddly, even the word "Nazi" is dangerously close to being a word that can now be used to identify anti-semites.
Language is important. Words have consequences. Writing changes the world.”
Students for Hamas
Courtesy of the Morning Wire:
Following last week’s devastating terror attacks in Israel, college campuses nationwide have seen an explosion in support for Hamas, sparking bitter protests and pushback from administrators.
Throughout the last week, thousands of college students at over a hundred campuses have held demonstrations and issued statements supporting Hamas while blaming Israel for the terror attacks that claimed over 1,300 lives.
Context: The activism has been led in large part by the organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has chapters on over 100 campuses and receives funding from organizations and individuals known to patronize Hamas and Hezbollah.
The group organized a “Day of Resistance” on Thursday and sent out a toolkit to members, which was obtained by The Daily Wire.
Among other things, the toolkit referred to the terrorist attack as a “historic win” and told students that “Liberating colonized land … requires confrontation by any means necessary.” It also offered students messaging advice, telling them no one in Israel should be considered a civilian because “settlers are not civilians.”
The toolkit also included templates for flyers to be used around campus, one of which includes a large image of a paraglider – paying homage to the terrorists who stormed a music festival in Israel with parachutes on Saturday.
SJP chapters used that language and those flyers to organize events of their own, sparking outrage on campuses nationwide.
For example…At UC Berkeley, the group issued a statement saying, “We support the resistance … and indisputably support the uprising,” before adding, “We invariably reject Israel’s framing as a victim.”
At the University of Virginia, the group said the attacks against Israel were “a step towards a free Palestine” and reiterated their “solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters.”
At UC San Diego, students held an “Honor our Martyrs” vigil for the Hamas terrorists killed during the attacks.
At George Washington University in D.C., the SJP chapter issued a statement calling the terrorists “freedom fighters,” comparing them to Nelson Mandela. The group hosted a rally with around a hundred students this week chanting in support of the terrorists, whom they referred to as martyrs.
But…Student groups at Harvard University have drawn the most national attention.
Shortly after the terrorist attacks Saturday, more than 30 student groups representing over a thousand students at Harvard issued a joint statement claiming Israel was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Those comments, and the relative lack of condemnation from Harvard leadership, garnered swift condemnation from a number of influential politicians and business leaders, including the school's former president and former U.S. treasury secretary, Larry Summers, who said he was “sickened” by the support of Hamas and the school’s lack of support for Israel.
Elsewhere, a number of CEOs, including billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, called on Harvard to release the names of every student who signed the letter so they could avoid hiring them in the future.
On Thursday, a large truck drove through campus with a digital billboard displaying the names and pictures of students behind the letter, calling them “Harvard’s Leading Anti-Semites.”
Harvard University initially issued a tepid statement addressing the attacks but did not mention the letter from those 30 student groups.
However…After facing backlash for multiple days, the school’s president finally issued a new statement condemning the “terrorist atrocities” and saying that “while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership."
Free speech only matters if it goes both way.
So far, it’s been a one-way street.
And for the student bodies that find fictional microaggressions in nearly every part of college life, can you imagine the trauma that would be endured by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS if there was a rally in front of the school in support of the shooter?
Kudos to Bill Ackman, Marc Rowan and others.
Rowan, one of the co-founders of Apollo and a Penn Trustee sent alumni a letter demanding the resignation of President Elizabeth Magill and Board Chair Scott Bok, who have been openly hostile to free speech on campus except when it comes to encouraging SJP and other anti-Israel and anti-semitic groups. Rowan also suggested that Penn alumni who feel disgusted and embarrassed by the woke Penn administration should cut their multi-million annual alumni donations to $1 until changes are made.
Ackman requested Harvard to release the names of the student group and signatories to a disgusting letter published by ‘Palestinian Resistance’ student groups.
The request sparked panic amongst students who now realized aligning and clapping with terrorists somewhat diminished your employment prospects, even in Biden’s America. That realization sparked resignations from many students who realized calling for the genocide of Israel and Jews (“from the river to the sea”) may be covered under Free Speech, but free speech doesn’t mean free from consequences.
The underlying truth of all of this is the right has allowed (and the left has encouraged) students at the university level to become more and more radicalized and brainwashed. We’ve also mistakenly imported hundreds of thousands if not millions of people into this country that harbor deep anti-semitic and anti-American values.
Hopefully this pushback is a start and builds with the condemnation of people that harbor these views and outright cancellation and deportation of those who actually applaud and provide material support to the terrorists.
For years I’ve written about the weaponization of the dollar, and that we shouldn’t be giving our hard earned money to people, groups or products that hate us and America.
While I don’t support the deportation or cancellation for mere speech, I have no problem of those espousing these repulsive views to face the real world consequences of calling for genocide. It’s no different than if a klan group of students was calling for and funding the ouright genocide of black americans as subhumans.
Free speech should be supported. It’s one of the bedrock principles of the Constitution. But it only makes sense when it goes both ways.
Harvard has cancelled, expelled and/or permitted conservative speakers to be roughed up on campus. It’s one reason they rank ZERO out of 100 on the Free Speech Index.
So take the Harvard President’s new found commitment to free speech with a grain of salt. If she really feels that way, then hold her feet to the fire the next time a group wants to espouse anti-LGBQTA+ views or calls for blacks to be deported to Africa.
Hate speech is free speech. And I for one would rather see who my enemies are and let sunlight disinfect them. I also have no issue if those views land the students in the unemployable category, regardless of their political affiliation.
And Kudos to my alma mater Lafayette College for rejecting the SJP request to form a chapter at the school last year. Always nice to see a school showing some moral clarity BEFORE the slaughter of hundreds of women and children.
Progressives
In line with the above, this week wouldn’t be complete without an assessment of the tremendous damage progressives (including many Jews) have done to our country/society.
You allowed your TDS and soft shell to trigger you into supporting Joe Biden, a man who served as the Vice President of Barack Obama most anti-Israel president in history over Donald Trump, the greatest friend Israel (and America) has ever had.
There’s an unwritten rule in times of crisis. You wait to eliminate the threat before doing an After Action Report and assessing blame and accountability.
At this time, I’m hands off on the many Israeli Jews who I differ with politically and Netanyahu, who certainly will have to pay the piper when this is done.
It’s time to eliminate the threat before we start pointing fingers over there. However, that’s primarily for Israelis, as they’re the ones in the thick of the fighting and putting their lives on the line,
American liberal Jews who persist in doubling down on their monstrous mistakes of the last 8 years (and on) will get no such honeymoon from me.
You’re not in the fight and bear some responsibility for what happened with your decision to put a nursing home patient in the White House that previously gave Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror, hundreds of billions of dollars.
You need to atone, and get on the right side of humanity and history.
While not intentional, you’ve been blind to the consequences of your actions. Your severe TDS and vote for Obama, Hillary and Biden has allowed a cancer to flourish in global affairs, media, NGOs and universities across the nation.
And for the sadly misinformed and morally compromised liberal Jewish groups like JStreet and Jewish Voice for Peace that have had more words of condemnation for Israel than Hamas and very few words regarding the slaughter of innocents, here’s a quick reminder.
The good news, is this entire event is a giant RED PILL for progressive Jews and other liberals who thought their allies were actually their allies. To the ones who are waking up, we applaud you and welcome you to our side. It’s a big tent. We don’t care about your race, gender or sexual orientation. We only care that you prize personal responsibility, traditional principles, and America First. That’s it. There’s room for humanists, anarcho-capitalists, atheists, evangelicals and everything in between.
For the rest of you who still seem stuck on “which side”, this meme is for you.
And finally, for those who still think the Black Left and other intersectionalists are your allies, here’s BLM Chicago’s reaction to 1300 civilians being slaughtered. Other BLM groups posted similar thoughts.
The silver lining is a lot of people being red-pilled by last week’s events. They’ll never admit their conservative friends (or God forbid, Donald Trump) was right, but they’re slowly waking up.
Dems are about to find out how openly anti-Semitic their base really is.
How many Jews sent money to these clowns?
How many posted their signs in their front yard?
How stupid do you feel now?
The Answer: Not stupid enough.
Former NY Knick Amare Stoudamire succinctly sums up my thoughts re: BLM et al.
Global Day of Jee-had
Hamas announced during the week that Friday would be a “Global Day of Jihad” where they called on their supporters to deliberately target and slaughter civilians throughout the world.
With the exception of a teacher stabbed to death in France, the day seemed to be a dud for Team Terror as it was quiet elsewhere.
Again, in light of the above, if you hear/see students and other leftist sh*tbags supporting Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups (ie, terrorists), acknowledge what they are calling for and trying to do.
And we might start by acknowledging that we’ve allowed these people to enshrine themselves in academia and the certain elements of the media, and start taking actual measures to marginalize them.
Mark Goldfeder has an idea I could get behind if their actions move beyond mere speech:
The ugly reality is we have millions of these people in our country and potentially much, much worse now who have crossed the border unvetted. As I’ve warned about for years, it would take very little coordination and training to create a veritable army of cells in this country dedicated to subterfuge and sabotage.
It’s likely they already exist and have been active. See the list below for just some of the industrial ‘accidents’ we’ve seen over the past few years. The time to begin the deportations is now. If you came in under Biden, you go back unless you’ve been cleared, vetted, and have family and the means to support yourself in this country. American generosity is not a suicide pact.
SBF and FTX Roundup
The SBF trial doesn’t really interest me in any way. My opinion is the same as it has been since the news first came to light. There’s very little chance of any conclusion that doesn’t involve a virtual life sentence for SBF (20+ years, with 30 being likely). The rest is just noise.
For those who haven’t paid attention and want a quick update, here’s a brilliant take on, “A Day in the Life” from my friend Scott Melker.
Once you read the below, you’ll know all you need to.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF SBF:
7:00 AM - wake up from two hours of quality sleep on beanbag
7:15 AM - do some adderall
7:30 AM - do some FTX fraud
7:45 AM - eat chips, instruct other people to do adderall and fraud
8:00 AM - Drink Red Bull, do Alameda fraud
8:30 AM - lose a billion dollars on a leveraged long while playing League Of Legends
8:45 AM - fill hole with customer funds
9:00 AM - morning sex with Caroline on beanbag while playing League Of Legends
9:02 AM - 8 minute nap on beanbag
9:10 AM - meeting with Gary Gensler
10:30 AM - meeting with Maxine Waters while playing League Of Legends
11:30 AM - transfer customer funds to Joe Biden
12:00 PM - do aderrall, call dad to do fraud
12:30 PM - give dad a raise to please mom while playing League Of Legends
1:00 PM - eat donuts for lunch, liquidate whale customers while playing League Of Legends
1:15 PM - buy Bahamas real estate, transfer to mom
2:00 PM - call with Genesis to lie about balance sheet
2:30 PM - call with BlockFi to lie about balance sheet
3:00 PM - creative writing time, making up a story about CZ
3:15 PM - do more adderall and review the day’s fraud
3:30 PM - delete emails and signal messages
4:00 PM - print some FTT
4:15 PM - go into DeFi and take loans on FTT while playing League Of Legends
5:00 PM - drink 2 Red Bulls and eat 4 more adderall
5:15 PM - loan Alameda some FTX customer funds for the LULZ while playing League Of Legends
5:30 PM - bribe a Chinese official
6:00 PM - instruct Caroline and Ryan to bribe Chinese officials
6:30 PM - do some artbitrage with Korean bank account but somehow still lose money
7:30 PM - create and list 12 shitcoins and offer customers 100x leverage
7:45 PM - sweep customer stop losses on newly listed shitcoins
8:30 PM - lose fresh funds on leveraged Bitcoin long
9:00 PM - late dinner and orgy with friends back at the apartment
9:06 PM - back to offices to do some fraud
9:30 PM - prank call Elizabeth Warren pretending to be Gary Gensler
10:00 PM - pick out outfit for Congressional hearing, forget how to tie shoe laces
10:30 PM - 6 more hours of doing fraud with his friends while playing League Of Legends
4:30 AM - do adderall and go to sleep
5:00 AM - fall asleep on beanbag, dream of doing fraud and being President
7:00 AM - repeat the previous day
Best of Twitter
Memetic Warfare
Parting Words….
Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%) —though this is fewer than those who support Fatah (64%)."
As long as the majority of Palestinians support HAMAS, it is hard to see anything changing. The philosophy that underlies this support essentially dictates that the welfare of Palestinians is irrelevant as long as Jews are being murdered. As long as so many militant Gazans are willing to die martyrs for the cause of genocide, it seems impossible to imagine a peaceful two-state solution.