JUST IN CASE YOU FORGOT DURING THE PANDEMIC HOW MUCH FUN IT IS TO DEAL WITH OUR AIRLINE MONOPSONY: Recently, I booked a last-minute ticket on Delta. I used flight credits from a pre-pandemic flight that was canceled, no new payment required. I rushed to the airport with my family, and tried to check in. No dice. I went to the counter. The man behind the counter told me that I need the credit card used to purchase the ticket. I explained that (a) I did not use a credit card to purchase the ticket, given that there was no charge; and (b) I don’t have the credit card the system is saying that I need to present (which I assume was saved in my Delta profile). Nevertheless, the Delta employee insisted that I needed to show the credit card I used to purchase the ticket. The ultimate resolution was that he had to cancel and then rebook the ticket, a process that required him to call into the Delta call center and which took almost an hour. We would have missed our flight but for a fortuitous weather delay–all because I couldn’t present the card I used to purchase the ticket, which never actually happened. I would have been mollified by an apology by Delta after I alerted them to what happened via their Twitter help handle, but nothing.

IF THIS IS SUCCESS, I’D HATE TO SEE WHAT FAILURE LOOKS LIKE: Chicago has been releasing accused murderers pretrial. Defending this policy in the wake of recent carnage on Chicago’s streets, the city’s chief judge notes that “out of 181 defendants charged with murder and released pretrial, only seven of them missed at least one court appearance, only 11 were charged with a new offense before trial, and of those 11, only two were charged with violent offenses.” Most criminal acts are never reported to police. Most that are reported to police never lead to criminal charges. So if 11 suspects were *charged* with a criminal offense after release, one can presume that the actual number of offenders was more like in the 50 to 100 range, or somewhere around one-third and one-half of those released. This is what passes for success in Chicago.

WAIT, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CLAIMED THAT THESE VACCINES WERE NO GOOD AND THAT BY OFFERING THEM TO THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ISRAEL WAS BEING RACIST: After Palestinians reject deal, Israel to send 700,000 vaccines to South Korea. Human Rights Watch and similar groups, which once had a proud history of standing up for human rights, have become propaganda factories for the far left. Here is Ken Roth of HRW, making up a phony obligation by Israel to provide the PA with vaccines, and then buying PA lies about why they wouldn’t accept vaccines when offered.

WHY DOES ISRAEL RECEIVE SUCH DISPROPORTIONATE ATTENTION, AND CRITICISM?: Israel’s Critics are Repulsed by Jewish Sovereignty and Military Power.

The most important conclusion from all this is that criticism of Israel’s use of military force cannot easily be reduced by Israel “behaving” differently. It’s not how Israel uses force that is the primary source of criticism, but ideologically based repulsion at Jews collectively exercising military power via their sovereign state, at all. This is why, in my experience, when critics of Israel claim that Israel is using “disproportionate” force, one can never pin down what level of force these critics would accept. If the IDF’s very existence is repulsive to them, and Israel is deemed inherently illegitimate, no amount of force can be acceptable.

IN SHORT, THEY SERVED AS WILLING PROPAGANDA AGENTS FOR HAMAS: The Spectator: The problem with the New York Times’ Gaza coverage. H/T Hans Bader.

IT’S THE WELL-BEHAVED KIDS WHO WILL PAY: Hans Bader: Education Department may encourage racial quotas in school discipline.

ALL THE FAKE NEWS FIT TO PRINT: Hans Bader: New York Times spreads propaganda from terrorist group Hamas.

VOX BEING VOX: Zach Beauchamp credulously quotes a far-left source: “Palestinian leaders have condemned antisemitism publicly and repeatedly.”

The Palestinians have two actual, elected (albeit in 2006) governments, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is literally a genocidal antisemitic organization. The head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is a long-time Holocaust denier, who more lately focuses on denying Jewish history in Jerusalem. The most popular Palestinian leader currently out of power, Marwan Barghouti, is in an Israeli jail for directing several terrorist murders of Israeli civilians–after Israel had offered the Palestinians independence in 2000. The Palestinian public in the Territories is among the most antisemitic in the world. The idea that the tie between antisemitism and Palestinian nationalism has been invented by Jewish organizations to “reinforce lurking anxieties that advocacy for Palestinian rights is inherently antisemitic” is maybe, along with the claim that Palestinian leaders routinely condemn antisemitism, perhaps the most gaslighty thing I’ve read all year. Beauchamp reports it, though, without comment. Of course, Beauchamp also once thought there was a bridge between the West Bank and Gaza.

Even if we are extremely generous, and assume that the source only meant prominent American Palestinians, the claim is still extremely dubious, and it’s also very unlikely that, say, Rashida Tlaib has more influence on pro-Palestinian rhetoric and actions than the actual Palestinian leadership, especially given that the perpetrators of recent antisemitic violence seem primarily to be immigrants.

THEY LIE, AND THEY THINK YOU ARE THAT STUPID: Rep. Mark Pocan lies about Israel having “segregated highways.”

One of the leading Israel-haters in Congress, Pocan told the Washington Post that “when he traveled to the region, he saw segregated highways and ‘that does remind me of an old South Africa, right?'” The South Africa analogy seems to make it clear that he was referring to racial or ethnic segregation.

There are certain roads in the West Bank, mostly near Jerusalem, that drew consistent terrorist attacks on Israeli drivers when they drove near Palestinian towns, resulting in many deaths and injuries. So Israel built bypass roads for cars with Israeli license plates. These cars could be driven by Jews or Arabs (over 20% of Israel’s population), but not by Palestinian drivers who are not residents of Israel, who could still use the old roads. Even that policy was restricted by the Israeli Supreme Court, which held that one major road from Jerusalem could not be restricted because it found that Palestinians did not have a good alternative. A new Jerusalem highway has separate lanes for Palestinian residents of the West Bank who have Palestinian license plates, and for those with Israeli license plates, to allow Palestinians access without providing terrorists an opportunity to attack Israeli drivers.

These are the “segregated roads” Pocan was referring to. Unlike South Africa, they have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with distinguishing between Israeli citizens and residents of all ethnicities, and West Bank Palestinians. Similarly, for security reasons Israel law forbids Israeli citizens from entering Area A of the West Bank, which is under Palestinian Authority security control. There is no racial or ethnic bias behind these rules, only security concerns because of terrorism.

So I called Pocan out on his lie on Twitter.

Pocan easily could have ignored my Tweet. He also could have claimed that when he said “segregated” he simply meant segregated between Israelis and non-Israelis, which is unfair, in his opinion, even if it’s not race-based. As a law professor colleague claimed on Pocan’s behalf, he could have argued he had been imprecise, and clarified that he was not referring to South Africa-style racial segregation.

Instead, he doubled down on the lie, and then, remarkably, accused me of lying.

ALONG WITH THE REST OF LEFTIST ACADEMIA: Jewish Studies Has an Antisemitism Problem. A lot of donors give money to Jewish Studies programs on campus, thinking that they will help attract faculty and students to their alma mater or local university, and give students an opportunity to explore Judaism and Jewish history. They may even think that the programs will be centers for pro-Jewish activism, the way that Women’s Studies advocate on behalf of feminism, or Black Studies on behalf of black activist causes. None of this is the right way to think about academic departments, which should be devoted to scholarship, but it’s no secret that universities attract philanthropists to Jewish Studies by appealing to specifically Jewish concerns. That bait and switch would be dishonest if academic Jewish Studies departments were doing what they should do, which is focusing on scholarly pursuits. But it’s worse than that, as many of these departments have become headquarters for non-scholarly activism targeting Israel, the Jewish establishment, and Judaism itself.

THIS IS WHO THEY ARE, AND THEY OWN IT: Rutgers Students for Justice in Palestine criticizes Rutgers chancellor for condemning “a sharp rise in hostile sentiments and anti-Semitic violence in the United States.” This is who they are, and they own it. UPDATE: OMG, then the chancellor apologized for condemning antisemitism.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST ISRAEL, EVEN IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ISRAEL: Some of the people who don’t want Israel to be able to defend itself are antisemites, or Islamists, or Palestinian nationalists (not that these are mutually exclusive categories). But there is also a cohort of leftists who don’t want any Western-oriented country to be able to defend itself militarily. To them, Israel is small and vulnerable and therefore is an alluring target for a propaganda campaign. The activists can make absurdly tendentious “international law” arguments (that have no real basis in international law) why Israel may not fight back against terrorism. Just for example, I’ve yet to find a single person who claims that Israel’s military response to Hamas violates the international law principle of proportionality who is willing to acknowledge that any level of force would be proportionate. Such arguments are taken seriously only because Israel is small and unpopular; the United States can brush off similar arguments with ease. But once the leftists get the precedents established against Israel, that it violates international law to fight terrorism basically if any civilians get harmed in the process, they will use those precedents against the U.S. and other countries. Israel is the canary in the coal mine here.

IT MUST BE FRUSTRATING BEING A HAMAS SPOKESMAN: “The illegitimate Zionist entity must be forced to end its occupation of all of Palestine, from Tel Aviv to Jericho.” Western Reporter: “So what you’re saying is that you support a peaceful 2-state solution.”

“We will kill the sons of pigs and apes like the great Hitler.” Western reporter: “So what you’re saying is that you object to right-wing Israeli politicians like Netanyahu.”

“We want an Islamic state governed by sharia.” Western reporter: “Democracy, one-person, one-vote, religious freedom for all. Got it.”

“We thank our great friends in Iran for their money, missiles, and bombs.” Western Reporter: “Hamas insists on being a grassroots Palestinian movement not dependent on foreign support.”

And from America’s Newspaper of Record: Hamas Terrorist at Gaza Border Surprised To Hear Media Describe Him as Peaceful Protester.

IT’S THEIR ONLY HOPE FOR POPULARITY OR EVEN ACCEPTANCE ON THE WOKE LEFT: Brendan O’Neill: Why Won’t Israelis Let Themselves be Killed?

DUST AND COBWEBS, MOSTLY: Biden Jewish Heritage Month Proclamation Provides a Peek into the Progressive Jewish Mindset.

BUREAUCRATS ALWAYS HAVE CONTEMPT FOR PEOPLE WHO EVADE GOVERNMENT CONTROL: Emails reveal Montgomery County health department’s contempt for nonpublic schools. After seeing how things went last spring, my wife and I made the wise decision to not trust our local public schools to handle the pandemic with even minimal competence, and put our two younger children in a private school. The school has been open full-time all year with no Covid outbreaks. One of the best decisions we have made, and we can’t imagine going back to public any time soon. Imagine the mess after more than a year of no in-person school, with some kids in pods and having tutoring, and other kids, often from non-English speaking homes, having no real education for 18 months! I pity the teachers come this fall who are going to have to deal with this–assuming that my county doesn’t find a way to evade Virginia law and not open full-time.

JOIN ME AND (RABBI) JONATHAN GREENBERG TONIGHT 8PM EST ON CLUBHOUSE: What Has Gone Wrong With American Judaism?

SOME ADVICE FOR PHILANTHROPISTS WHO SUPPORT JEWISH COMMUNAL INSTITUTIONS: American Jewish philanthropy and continuity. Needed: A plan and the resources to make Jewish camps, schools, etc. better and less expensive than their competition; the opposite is often true now. Not needed: more Holocaust memorials and endowed chairs in Jewish studies that go to leftist professors.

GOVERNMENT KILLS, PART ….: CDC Calls for Halt to J & J Vaccine Due to Blood Clot Risk. The risk appears to be less than one in a million overall, and so far zero for men. We should just inform people of this tiny to virtually non-existent risk and let them decide they think the risk is worth it compared to (a) only having to get one shot and/or (b) not being able to get a shot at all for some indefinite period. It’s extremely likely that more people will die and get ill because of the halt to the vaccine that would have died or become ill from the vaccine.

THE THREE TENORS? THE THREE CABELLAROS? NOPE, IT’S THE THREE DAVID BERNSTEINS: If you are on Clubhouse, join me, David Bernstein, and David Bernstein for a discussion of freedom of expression and wokeness Monday 4/12 at 8:00 pm. [BUMPED]

NOTICE OF NAME CHANGE: I am planning to legally change my name to Infrastructure McInfrastructure. I figure I can get a large check from President Biden, who can in turn claim it’s “an investment” in the future. You know, the way his infrastructure bill contains all sorts of other giveaways disguised as “infrastructure spending.”

A LIMITED BUT SIGNIFICANT VICTORY FOR CHILDREN THE GOVERNMENT DEEMS TO BE AMERICAN INDIANS: Tim Sandefur analyzes the Fifth Circuit’s long, divided opinion on the Indian Child Welfare Act.

I’ve spent the last couple of years researching the modern American law of racial classification, and if you asked me what is the most obviously unconstitutional (or for that matter, immmoral) law that depends on such classification, my answer would be the ICWA. Just for example, under ICWA a child could be zero percent Indian on his mother’s side, 1/256 Cherokee on his father’s side, and not a member of the Cherokee tribe, but eligible for tribal membership. His parents decide to give the child up for adoption to a loving white (or black, or Hispanic) family. Great, right? Wrong. The Cherokee Tribe can veto the adoption, and insist that he be adopted by a Cherokee.

But wait, there’s more. Before a court can allow the non-Indian couple to adopt, it would have to make sure that no other Indian tribe wants to claim the child. In other words, this child’s future is being determined solely based on what amounts to a one-drop rule of racial ancestry, allowing a child that’s never set foot on his ancestral reservation to be adopted against the parents’ judgment by a tribe with which he has no connections at all, other than “racial.” The Supreme Court needs to take this opportunity to get rid of this monstrous law.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE NARRATIVE: New York Times: Minority Entrepreneurs Struggled to Get Small-Business Relief Loans. Buried in the text: “The vast majority of lenders did not report demographic data on the 3.6 million loans they made this year, but of the 996,000 that included information on the borrower’s race, 71 percent of the dollars went to white-owned businesses.” But over eighty percent of U.S. businesses are owned by whites, and because many of the businesses owned by minorities are owned by immigrants, they tend to be less established. So all things equal, one might expect the baseline to be that more than eighty percent of “the dollars” would go to whites. So how the New York Times concludes that its “analysis of data from several sources” “show that Black- and other minority-owned businesses were disproportionately underserved by the relief effort” is a mystery not explained in the article.

BLEG–ACADEMIC LITERATURE EXPLAINING ASIAN SUCCESS: Several years ago, I posted something, I think on Facebook, asking how Critical Race Theorists and Intersectionalists who believe that white supremacy reigns supreme and largely dictates the fortunes of other groups explain the relative socioeconomic success of Asian Americans. One correspondent responded that some of them argue that whites “allow” Asians to succeed because that way they can justify their oppression of brown and black people by pointing to Asian success as refuting white supremacy. I expressed skepticism that anyone who was an actual academic would publish such an absurd conspiracy theory. My correspondent replied with links to two or three articles in academic journals promoting exactly that theory. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find that Facebook post in my archives, nor did a request on FB turn up anything. But I’m sure that this exchange occurred, and I read the articles arguing that Asians succeed because whites “let” them. So my bleg to Instapundit readers is that if any of you are familiar with any such articles, to please send me links, either in the comments or to my email.

IN THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF “THIS COUNTRY HAS GONE COMPLETELY INSANE”: There was a horrific mass shooting, with ten people murdered. Photos emerged of the shooter, who is obviously Caucasian/white.

Leftist identitarians on Twitter gleefully(!) proclaimed that the shooting was an example of at best white male toxicity, and likely white supremacy. Then in turned out that the shooter was a Muslim immigrant from Syria. The identitarians beat a hasty retreat, embarrassed for jumping to the conclusion he was white, because Muslims from Syria aren’t white. Even when they are.

Digging a bit deeper, note that the Trump Administration had two cabinet officials of Lebanese descent (Azar and Espy) and virtually none of the wokesters suggested that they were non-white members of the cabinet. Jews much swarthier than the shooter are, unlike white Muslims, deemed to have “white privilege” because reasons. And official (legal) racial classifications in the U.S. have deemed Arab-Americans to be white forever.

I wish I could say this insanity was limited to the U.S., but a few years back a white woman of Algerian heritage was deemed (and deemed herself) the “first black president” of the British student union.

It’s all about weaponizing identity for left-wing political ends, of course. But it’s still insane.