Author Archive: David Bernstein

YES, THE SO-CALLED PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT FOMENTS VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS, PART II: Columbia University student Khymani James publicly stated that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that others should be “grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Although Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the umbrella anti-Israel campus group, initially issued an apology on his behalf, the group later rescinded that apology and explicitly endorsed “armed resistance,” while James himself disavowed any expression of regret.

YES, THE SO-CALLED PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT FOMENTS VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS: I say so-called, because the movement does not care at all about the welfare of Palestinians, it’s at base a hate-Israel movement. As for violence against Jews, in the wake of the massacre in Australia I have seen many denials that the movement endorses violence against Jews, but putting aside the incendiary rhetoric (“globalize the intifada” and whatnot) there is plenty of contrary evidence, such as:

YE PROPHETS OF DOOM: The Economist 2 years ago:

The Economist this week:

And who can forget, from March:

CARLSON GOES FULL CANDACE OWENS: Appealing to low-IQ credulous conspiracy theorists is a sure way to destroy a political movement, and Tucker seems to be giving it the old college try. Here’s the background: The communist anti-American government in Venezuela naturally hates Israel, while the opposition leadership is friendly. This is hardly a secret. The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom has a story about this. A nutty anti-Israel leftist posted an excerpt from the story, with the caption, “Israeli publication, Israel Hayom, says it was ISRAEL that pushed Trump to bring about regime change in Venezuela.” Except that the story does not say anything remotely like that. Which didn’t stop Tucker from going into his “just asking questions mode,” to provide more oxygen for this non-story.

EVERYTHING I DON’T APPROVE OF IS GENOCIDE: Members of a right-wing Israeli party wore pins shaped like nooses to advocate the death penalty for terrorists convicted of murder. Naturally, this is genocide.

ABOUT THE BBC: The BBC did some minor housecleaning, which will surely not resolve its broader problem of being hostile to capitalism, the US, the West, and especially Israel. But I’ve noticed in social media that all manner of British leftists are now arguing that the BBC is actually not just less unfriendly to capitalism, the US, the West, and especially Israel than they are, but that its actually “right-wing” on all things, and especially biased in favor of Israel.

Do they really mean it? No, of course not, as not a single one of them has called for defunding the BBC and allowing a private news market to arise in its stead. They know the Beeb is a huge asset to the Left, but that doesn’t stop them from gaslighting about it to try to get it to move even further left.

HE’S AS PHONY AS A THREE-DOLLAR BILL: I was poking around the internet tonight, and discovered that during Zohran Mandami’s rap career as “Young Cardamom,” he pretended to have grown up in and still live in Kapmala, Uganda. In fact, his family left Uganda for New York when Mamdani was six.

Article 1: “Young Cardamom & HAB are both Ugandans with roots that reach far beyond their borders. Though they represent the sound of their city, Kampala, the duo’s tracks also blend several influences from South Sudan, India, Atlanta, and Lahore.”

Article 2: “HAB and I are both Ugandans with roots abroad, with HAB’s in South Sudan and mine in India…. Our lyrics and choice of language are rebuttals of what Ugandan society expects of us.” “The two grew up in the same part of Kampala, called Buziga, and last year they released ‘Kanda (Chap Chap),’ a song celebrating the East African street food chapati and using it as a way to discuss identity, migration and pride.”

WHY SHOULD NYC VOTERS CARE THAT MAMDANI SUPPORTS HAMAS, AN ISLAMIST TERRORIST GROUP?: I can think of 9112001 reasons.

STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE IS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION: Man who attacked Jews in NYC becomes cause célèbre for anti-Israel activists: “Anti-Israel activists [led by SJP] in the US have rallied behind Tarek Bazrouk, a New York resident who confessed to carrying out antisemitic attacks against three Jews. In June, Bazrouk, 20, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to attacking the individuals because of their Jewish or Israeli identity.”

And he doesn’t seem to have been just the ordinary violent antisemite: “When investigators searched Bazrouk’s room, in an apartment he shared with his family, they found an airsoft gun that appeared to be an actual firearm, bullet casings, brass knuckles, four knives, including a switchblade and $750,000 in cash, the source of which remains unclear.”

HYPROCRISY, THEY NAME IS GREENWALD: Quite a remarkable thing to see “free speech absolutist” Glenn G. calling for journalists he disagrees with to face criminal charges. But I’ve never been fooled by Greenwald’s civil libertarian act, he’s a leftist authoritarian at heart, he just also hates the US government.

UPDATE: By the way, the Free Press is an American publication run by Bari Weis, and Greenwald referring to it as Israeli is his snide way of suggesting that the writers’ loyalties lie elsewhere. Which in turn is quite strange for someone who abandoned his home country of the US to live in Brazil and become a citizen there. But again, don’t expect any consistency from Greenwald.

SATIRE IS DEAD, KILLED BY REALITY:

Link to original.

THE ABSURD AMERICAN POLITICS OF RACE: I wonder if I’m the only one who noticed that the “candidate of color,” Mamdani, in the NYC mayoral Democratic primary seems to be (from pics, haven’t seen them in person) significantly fairer-skinned than the “white candidate,” Andrew Cuomo?

THE SILENCE THAT NEVER SHUTS UP: Generally speaking, antisemites aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but I nevertheless find it remarkable how often they say that “no one is allowed to say “X” about something related to Jews,” even though there they are, saying it, and no one is arresting or murdering them. It’s particularly illogical when it comes from someone with an audience of millions, like Tucker Carlson. The notion that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent is a baseless conspiracy theory, but yes, Tucker, you are allowed to promote it anyway, because there isn’t some international Jew police stopping you, and it’s not the least bit brave for you to go down this particular road to perdition.

CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM HAS THE SAME ROOTS AND SHOULD BE FOUGHT WITH THE SAME MEANS AS OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF INTERSECTIONAL WOKENESS: Free speech, antisemitism and the fight for America’s campuses: “What we are witnessing on campus is not just a wave of anti-Israel sentiment. It is part of a larger assault on liberalism [in the broad sense] itself.”

FINAL VERSION PUBLISHED: Supporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses.

My coauthored article makes a number of contributions to the relevant debate, but let me highlight one of them. Many “pro-Palestine” activists have been gaslighting us regarding what’s been happening on campus, portraying it as a conflict between between freedom of expression and censorship attempts by “Zionists.” In fact, as we discuss, most of the controversy over antisemitism has arisen because of violence, threats, intimidation, trespass, assault, disruptions of classrooms and other campus spaces, harassment of individual students, discrimination by university bureaucrats, and other actions that do not reasonably come within a sound definition of “freedom of expression.”

“HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS” ARE A JOKE: The latest idiocy is that it’s purportedly a human rights violation to feed hungry civilians in Gaza unless Hamas gets a large cut.

PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: I was there when Trump said this last September: “I wanted one thing from Iran, no nuclear weapons. I didn’t want much, no nuclear weapons. And now, they’re very close to getting it, and you can’t let that happen.”

Iran should have taken him seriously and literally.

SORRY AOC, HE’S MARRIED:

WARNING: MAY LEAVE A SMILE ON YOUR FACE ALL DAY: Confirmed video shows the moment Israel hits Iran’s state propaganda channel.

I DON’T THINK THE AYATOLLAH IS TRYING TO BRING THE US INTO THE WAR: But some of his subordinates seem to have other ideas. Iran-backed militias in Iraq have tried to attack US bases with drones. And yesterday the US embassy annex in Tel Aviv, which is really our primary building in Israel, was damaged by an Iranian rocket. I am very familiar with the geography there, my wife once did a “detail” for the US government in that building. On one side, you have beach and ocean. On the other, you have mostly low-rise buildings and parking lots. To the north and south, you have a bunch of scattered hotels, with space between them. In short, if you are firing rockets accurate within X meters, but not fully accurate, this is not an area you’d be targeting because you’d be unlikely to hit anything significant, and your rocket might well just fall into the ocean. Which suggests that someone was, in fact, targeting the embassy.

HOW MANY PEOPLE SEE THIS, AND ARE TOO DUMB OR BLINDED BY THEIR PRIORS TO NOTICE THAT HIS SKIN IS ACTUALLY LIGHTER IN THE SECOND PHOTO: It’s an awfully odd form of “Islamaphobic” racism to make your opponent look fairer-skinned.