WHEN “GENOCIDE” LOSES ITS MEANING: Me methodically debunking the Gaza genocide hoax in Skeptic Magazine:

Establishing a claim of genocide against Israel would require more than pointing to the scale of suffering in Gaza or to deeply felt moral condemnation. It would require setting aside established precedent, blurring the distinction between intent and consequence, and relying heavily on tendentious, nay dishonest, interpretations of rhetoric by Israeli leaders. In effect, concluding that Israel has engaged in genocide requires not just expanding the definition of genocide beyond its accepted legal contours but well beyond reasonable interpretation of the concept.

WELCOME TO YOUR OVERTLY ANTISEMITIC, TERRORIST-SUPPORTING MICHIGAIN DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Weeks after a Hezbollah-linked terrorist tried to murder dozens of Jewish children in Michigan, the state party recently nominated a Hezbollah supporter for the University of Michigan Board of Regents over an incumbent targeted because he’s Jewish.

GOOD QUESTION:

On a wide range of issues, the long tail of East Bloc Cold War propaganda has much more of a foothold in American politics, both left and even more surprisingly, right (I’m looking at you, Tucker Carlson), than it ever had during the Cold War.

Two reasons come to mind, though they are at best partial explanations. One is our elite universities, which have long been home to domestic radicals, but now also house a large contingent of Third World Communists and Islamists, such as Mamdani’s father. A second is the popularity of Bernie Sanders, who had a long career as a Communist fellow traveler before pretending to moderate to become a Vermont senator, and whose increasingly radical rhetoric on everything from greedy bankers to “Palestine” is right out of the wrong side of the Cold War playbook.

I OFTEN WONDER ABOUT THE HISTORICAL IGNORANCE OF PEOPLE IN THE UK WHEN THEY SUGGEST THEIR COUNTRY IS A PACIFISTIC MODEL OF HOW ISRAEL SHOULD BEHAVE WHEN CONFRONTED WITH ROCKET FIRE ON CIVILIANS:

SO, WE SHOULD HAVE A FORMAL DEFENSE TREATY WITH ISRAEL AND STATION THOUSANDS OF SOLDIERS THERE: The latest meme among Democrats (and some Republicans) is that we should treat Israel “like every other ally,” i.e., no military aid. I think US aid to Israel is a mixed blessing for both countries, but I want to focus here on the underlying dishonesty. Yes, Israel officially gets “foreign military aid” and the others don’t. But that’s an artifact of budget shenanigans, in particular Democrats historically insisting that our military relationship with Israel be put in the foreign aid budget to help get the rest of the (unpopular) foreign aid budget passed. But the US provides massive in-kind subsidies to our other allies in the form of US soldiers stationed there and mutual defense pacts, allowing countries like Canada to freeload off US defense. And then they won’t even let the US use their bases when needed.

THEY ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE: A Hezbollah-linked terrorist sought to murder dozens of children in a Michigan synagogue, but NPR reporters thought the real story was how the terrorist’s terrorist relatives in Lebanon felt.

Link to public editor column, and to tweet.

MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL TRYING TO INTIMIDATE MY COLLEAGUE ADAM MOSSOFF: There is nothing racist about the image in question (actual picture of her included below for reference), MPAC is wildly hypocritical about freedom of expression as they try to silence Adam, and this nonsense deserves to be Streisand effect-ed.

DEMAGOGUES AND SIMPLETONS DON’T CARE ABOUT EVIDENCE: Yes, the Trump administration is very friendly to Israel, and treats Israel as an important ally rather than a burden or quarrelsome recipient of US charity, as under Obama or Biden. But no, Israel (and the so-called Israel lobby) doesn’t control US policy, and indeed Trump has defied Israeli preferences on many occasions, as Max Abrahams notes:

BECAUSE THEY HATED LIMBAUGH, AND MERELY FOUND KHAMEINI DISTASTEFUL:

WHY, INDEED?:

LITERALLY DOING THE MEME:

DON’T BE A RUBE: Gabriel Epstein has more on X.

WHO WANTS TO TELL HIM? In the early 20th century, we not only did not have pre-Reagan tax rates, until 1913 we had no federal income tax at all, and the original NYC subway lines, the BMT and the IRT, were built by private companies, and operated privately until 1940.

YOU CAN SAY THAT, BUT YOU CAN’T DO THAT! I’m a longstanding critic of allowing hostile environment complaints based on offensive political speech. But I also think that Jewish students at many universities where Hamasniks were chanting “globalize the intifada” and whatnot have a viable hostile environment case. Why? Because liability doesn’t attach for the speech endorsing violence, but this speech provides context for why universities were obligated to crack down on illicit behavior by Hamansniks that they instead tolerated and even encouraged.

This unprotected behavior includes violence, intimidation, threats, classroom disruptions, vandalism, and other acts that created a hostile environment for Jewish students. In isolation, these actions might not create a hostile environment, but when the students engaging in illicit acts are also endorsing violence, a reasonable Jewish student could feel concern for his safety, to the point where it meets the legal standard of interfering with his educational opportunities. This is especially true given that there have been dozens of incidents of violence against Jewish student on campus since Oct. 7, 2023, and also, unfortunately, several murders of Jewish people by Hamasniks in society at large. Certainly courts should not be, as several have, dismissing these cases without giving the plaintiffs the opportunity to even get discovery from the defendants (for the legally literate, on 12b6 motions to dismiss).

I explain it all in this forthcoming article, which also has, I believe, the most comprehensive documentation yet published of incidents of violence, threats, and intimidation against Jewish students, almost none of which have been covered by the MSM.

I EXPECT A LAWSUIT FOR VIOLATING CALIFORNIA’S DRACONIAN PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS LAW IS COMING: You can’t make this stuff up: “we aren’t political, and we don’t ask our performers their political views, but we won’t let an Israeli Jew perform unless he denies absurd libels against Israel. But that’s not political, and we don’t ask our performers their political views.”

CHECKMATE:

SUDDENLY, THE MAN WITH OPINIONS ON EVERYTHING DOESN’T HAVE ONE: If world events can’t be used to bash the US government or Israel, Glenn Greenwald suddenly has very meticulous criteria for offering an opinion. Not knowing Hebrew or Arabic certainly hasn’t stopped him from expressing (admittedly ignorant) opinions on the Gaza war. But he can’t even bring himself to give well-wishes to Iranians fighting their tyrannical theocracy, which hardly requires a degree in Persian politics.

IGNORANCE, THY NAME IS TUCKER: In a segment of his interview with Ted Cruz last summer since deleted from his platforms, Tucker Carlson expresses incredulity when Cruz notes that Iran was trying to assassinate Trump (X link).
Well, it’s not like Biden-appointed prosecutors indicted an Iranian agent, who is still at large for trying to murder Trump, and Biden AG Merrick Garland announced this with great fanfare. Oh, wait, it’s exactly like that. Somehow, this very public (and important) story either eluded Tucker’s attention, or he purposely chose to mock it, knowing that it’s true. Neither speaks well of Tucker.

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.:

CHOOSING POORLY:

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.

FIRE THEM ALL AND LET GOD SORT IT OUT: Columbia University Faculty Behaving Badly.

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.