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May 2024

The People Setting America on Fire An investigation into the witches’ brew of billionaires, Islamists, and leftists behind the campus protests By Park MacDougald

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/people-setting-america-on-fire-soros-tides-wespac

Over the past several weeks, Americans have witnessed what has seemed like a mass outpouring of support for terror on elite college campuses. At Columbia, Yale, Princeton, NYU, UCLA, Northwestern, Texas, and elsewhere, masked mobs have occupied schools with tent encampments, established self-proclaimed “autonomous zones,” clashed with police, harassed and threatened visibly Jewish students, and issued demands for their universities to divest from Israeli “genocide.” Politically, moreover, the protests have displayed an incoherent mix of campus progressivism, hardcore Islamism and Arab nationalism, and revolutionary anarchism and communism, including open praise for North Korea. The only unifying thread would appear to be opposition to Israel and its alleged imperial patron, the United States.

Have America’s college students suddenly converted en masse to anarcho-communist-jihadism? Not quite. Many are far left and anti-Israel. Some are foreigners, or the children of foreigners, who have imported the conspiracies and hatreds of their homelands. More, admitted under relaxed pandemic-era admissions standards and proudly ignorant of both American and world history, are taking the “decolonial” half-knowledge pushed by their elders to its logical conclusion.

But students are not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, faction active in the campus protests. As in the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, “outside agitators”—professional radicals and organizers, black bloc antifa thugs, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, and Palestinian and Islamist radicals—have played a central role in organizing and escalating the campus protests, just as they have organized and escalated the wider anti-Israel protest campaign that began almost immediately after Oct. 7. This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party.

Pro-Hamas movement has roots in ‘60s radicalism Now as then, the goal is to bring America down Don Feder

https://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/don-feder/

I spent the 1960s fighting the New Left on the college campus as a leader of Young Americans for Freedom. For me, the pro-Hamas mobs are deja vu all over again.

The poisonous seeds of the current crisis were sown in anti-Vietnam War agitation. Who knows what the next bumper crop will bring.

Chants of “Ho, ho. Ho Chi Minh, the NLF [National Liberation Front] is sure to win” have become “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

In the ’60s, the vanguard of the revolution was Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen. Today, it’s Students for Justice in Palestine — with over 200 college chapters in the U.S. and Canada — supported by far-left philanthropist George Soros, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and money from the Middle East.

The American withdrawal from Southeast Asia was followed by a bloodbath, including the Cambodian killing fields where an estimated 2 million died. If Hamas ever gets its terrorist state, the Oct. 7 genocide will be endlessly repeated.

Like Vietnam War protesters, the pro-Hamas youth are composed of hard-core communists and useful idiots. Now, add a contingent of Islamists, many here on student visas.

The fifth columnists of today have their counterparts in every war we’ve fought in the last hundred years.

Ongoing Jihadist Infiltration into America By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/ongoing_jihadist_infiltration_into_america.html

Alleged pundits scratch their heads in puzzlement and ask: how did all these pro-Hamas outbursts suddenly appear on American universities?

They are, in fact, not some spontaneous eruption, but clearly the product of an ongoing jihadist campaign to infiltrate America’s school system.  Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and Yasser Arafat before them have for decades educated American universities to jihad.  Recent events attest to their disturbing success.

One such group, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) was established in 2005 by University of California Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian.  AMP “is a major promoter of the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) movement.”  Additionally, AMP is a major supporter of the pro-Hamas campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

SJP is “a highly influential campus organization with chapters based at approximately 200 American colleges and universities, where it organizes and sponsors anti-Israel events and campaigns more actively than any other student group in the nation.”

Several of AMP’s recent board members and key officials … worked closely with, now-defunct Islamic extremist groups that funded terrorist activities, i.e., the Islamic Association for Palestine (which, until its dissolution in 2004, served as the chief U.S. propaganda arm of Hamas); the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (which from 1995-2001 contributed approximately $12.4 million in money, goods, and services to Hamas); and KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development (whose assets were frozen in 2006 by the U.S. Treasury Department because of its fundraising activities on behalf of Hamas).

Moreover, “American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) provides speakers, training, printed materials, a so-called ‘Apartheid Wall,’ and [financial] grants to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) activists.”  As the Investigative Project on Terrorism notes, “AMP routinely engages in anti-Israeli rhetoric, sponsors conferences that serve as a platform for Israel bashers, and openly approves ‘resistance’ against the ‘Zionist state.’”  In fact, “[a]n Arabic-language poster on display in its Chicago headquarters in 2016 included the phrase, ‘No Jew will live among them in Jerusalem.’”

Where is the money coming from to support Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)?

The DEI Jihad How campus Jew-hate and DEI evangelism are cut from the same cloth. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-dei-jihad/

It’s no secret that the nation’s college campuses are ground zero for the current outpouring of Jew hatred. At Columbia, a mob recently taunted Jewish students, telling them to “go back to Europe” and “you have no culture.” At Yale, a Jewish student was stabbed in the eye with a flagpole.

As Ben Shapiro explains, this enmity has been fostered by left-wing college administrations for two generations, which believein “the intersectional hierarchy of victimhood, in which Muslims outrank Jews.”

Shapiro is, of course, correct. U.S. universities are invariably run by leftists who unapologetically espouse beliefs that are radical and revolting – in several senses of the word.

An article from Inside Higher Ed in 2017 cited a study showing that just over 9% of faculty surveyed identified as “conservative.” A more recent piece from the American Institute for Economic Research points out that this trend has becomeeven more one-sided over the past few years, with the number of faculty who identify as “far left” more than doubling. Non-leftist voices have been “squeezed out of the academy due to a combination of retirements and an emerging bias in faculty hiring that appears to privilege progressive political beliefs.”

In addition to colleges, anti-Semitism is omnipresent at the K-12 level. In government-run schools, Jews are often portrayed as privileged whites and oppressors, with Israel branded as an example of “settler colonialism” and the oppression of “indigenous people.”

Syre Elementary School, a highly-ranked public school in Shoreline, WA, near Seattle, teaches children as young as sevenyears old to chant “Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea” and instructs them to hold mock anti-Israel protests.

In November, hundreds of students rampaged through the hallsof a New York City high school for nearly two hours after they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally, forcing the terrified educator to hide in a locked office as the mob tried to push its way into her classroom.

The Oakland Unified School District faces a federal investigation after 30 Jewish families removed their kids from school due to rampant anti-Semitism.

Thirteen Federal Judges Pledge Not to Hire from Columbia, Call It an ‘Incubator of Bigotry’ James Lynch

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/thirteen-federal-judges-pledge-not-to-hire-from-columbia-call-it-an-incubator-of-bigotry/

Thirteen federal judges say they will no longer hire Columbia University students as law clerks due to their behavior and the school’s handling of anti-Israel protests that drew nationwide attention, writing that “Columbia has disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country.”

The judges wrote a letter on Monday to Columbia president Minouche Shafik informing her of their decision to boycott the university because of the anti-Israel encampment and what they see as the school’s lack of viewpoint diversity.

“Columbia University has become ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, anti-semitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses across the Nation,” the judges wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by National Review. “As judges who hire law clerks every year to serve in the federal judiciary, we have lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education. Columbia has instead become an incubator of bigotry.”

The judges called for Columbia leaders to administer “serious consequences” to students and faculty members who participated in the encampment, which featured antisemitic incidents and pro-Hamas chanting on campus.

“Universities should also identify students who engage in such conduct so that future employers can avoid hiring them. If not, employers are forced to assume the risk that anyone they hire from Columbia may be one of these disruptive and hateful students,” the letter says.

The poison of Islamic sectarianism Councillors chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and defending Hamas reveal how Muslim identity politics has infected our democracy. Fraser Myers

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/06/the-poison-of-islamic-sectarianism/

The UK Green Party’s Mothin Ali had just been elected to Leeds City Council in the Gipton and Harehills ward, when he punched his fist in the air and yelled out: ‘Allahu Akbar!’ Draped in a Palestinian keffiyeh, he told his supporters in his victory speech on Friday: ‘We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine!’

Ali’s fiery victory speech spoke to a broader trend. In last week’s elections, voters in vast swathes of England were essentially asked to pass comment on the Israel-Hamas war, rather than local issues like bus routes and bin collections. In many wards with large Muslim populations, this turned out to be a successful gambit. Akhmed Yakoob, an independent endorsed by George Galloway, put Palestine at the front and centre of his campaign for the West Midlands mayoralty. He secured 69,000 votes – which was almost enough to deprive Labour’s Richard Parker of his victory over Tory incumbent Andy Street. Labour lost control of Oldham Council for the first time in 13 years, thanks partly to a surge in support for independents who campaigned on Palestine. Activists in Bradford celebrated their city’s apparent rejection of ‘Zionism’ (even as Labour retained control of the council). A BBC analysis of 58 local-council wards found that in areas where more than one in five voters is Muslim, Labour’s share of the vote plummeted by 21 percentage points compared with 2021. In typical Keir Starmer fashion, Labour has flip-flopped over Gaza, angering many previously loyal supporters in the process. Party strategists are terrified that this could undermine Labour’s chances of a landslide at the next General Election.

What all this confirms is that Islamic identity politics, in which Palestine now plays a pivotal role, is becoming a significant electoral force in the UK. Of course, you do not have to be a Muslim to take an interest in the Gaza war, but polls show that one in four British Muslims names Palestine as his or her most important election issue, compared with just three per cent of the public as a whole.

It seems the victory of George Galloway in the Rochdale by-election in February – a contest he described as a ‘referendum on Gaza’ – was a foretaste of this new sectarianism.

The Party Of ‘Death To America’

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/05/07/the-party-of-death-to-america/

There was, if hazy memories recall correctly, a time when the Democratic Party was merely an alternative to the Republican Party and not a threat to the country. Those days are gone. Today’s Democrats are in the business of wracking, ruining and razing.

The Biden administration, says former Hawaiian Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, is “​​destroying the foundational, fundamental elements of our country and what it means to be an American.”

Speaking recently to Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report, Gabbard noted that “we have seen now consistently throughout his entire administration over these last three and a half years, consistently pushing policies that undermine our freedom, that make our country less safe and less secure, and that is very quickly unraveling and” wrecking the backbone of the country.

Though Gabbard left the party not even two years ago, what we’re seeing is not new. The political left, says author David Horowitz, has long been filled with radical activists who “cannot be negotiated with.”

“There is no living alongside it. Either Americans defeat the Neo-Nazi Left or the Neo-Nazi Left defeats America,” says Horowitz.

Renu Mukherjee A Second Chance The Supreme Court has a fresh opportunity to strike down school admissions policies that are racially discriminatory in intent and effect.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/will-scotus-revisit-discriminatory-admissions-policies

n February, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, a case that concerned a change in admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) in Alexandria, Virginia. After the new policy took effect, the share of Asian students admitted to TJ, one of the nation’s top public high schools, dropped by nearly 20 percentage points from the previous year. The share of white, black, and Hispanic students, by contrast, increased. As it turns out, this had been the goal of education officials in Fairfax County all along. At an October 2020 meeting, TJ’s own principal revealed that she wanted a “student body that more closely aligns with the representation in Fairfax County Public Schools.”

Justice Samuel Alito described the majority’s refusal to hear the case as “hard to understand.” In 2007’s Parents Involved v. Seattle School District, the Supreme Court held that a school district’s interest in racial balancing could not justify the district’s use of race in selecting students for admission to public high schools. In 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the court struck down the use of racial preferences in college admissions. Neither decision, however, addressed admissions policies that—like TJ’s—are race-neutral on their face but race-conscious in aim and effect. Thus, “TJ offers a roadmap,” Alito warned, “for other selective schools to skirt the Equal Protection Clause.”

The Supreme Court has a second chance to remind education officials that “eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it,” as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Students for Fair Admissions. Last month, the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence—a group of parents and students who support merit-based admissions and improving K–6 education—asked the justices to examine the 2021–22 admissions policy for Boston’s three selective public high schools. This policy, while facially race-neutral, diminished the share of white students (from 33 percent to 24 percent) and Asian students (from 21 percent to 16 percent) at Boston Latin School (BLS), Boston Latin Academy (BLA), and John O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science (O’Bryant). As in Fairfax County, the Boston School Committee adopted the new admissions policy because it believed Asians (and whites) were “overrepresented.”

Al Jazeera’ plays the free-speech card Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/al-jazeera-plays-the-free-speech-card/

The brouhaha surrounding the closure of Al Jazeera’s Israel operations is part of a broader disinformation campaign against the Jewish state. Even the way the move is being portrayed by the Qatari media outlet—as a violation of free speech—is a lie.

Not surprising, given that mendacity is a requirement for employees of the network. But bad journalism isn’t behind the legislation, which passed last month in a landslide Knesset vote and unanimously by the Cabinet on Sunday.

Indeed, if slanted coverage had been the impetus for the law, the government would long ago have banned Al Jazeera, as well as most other broadcasters and print publications, including the Hebrew-language ones. Contrary to negative narratives, Israel actually adheres to the tenet (coined by Voltaire biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” 

No, the bill, which allows Israel to temporarily shutter foreign broadcasters deemed to be a threat to national security during the war against Hamas in Gaza, was born and approved as an emergency measure in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre. It arose as a result of Al Jazeera’s involvement in, support for and obfuscation of the atrocities committed by Hamas on Simchat Torah—and in its abetting the terrorist organization’s falsification of ostensible Israeli crimes.

Protesters at U. Penn seek clash, police refuse to clear encampment By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/protesters-at-penn-seek-clash-police-refuse-to-clear-encampment/

As tensions escalate at a Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the University of Pennsylvania, administrators are taking a dialogue and de-escalation approach, possibly because they have no choice.

U. Penn asked the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) to dismantle the encampment, but the police refused, the student-run Daily Pennsylvanian claimed on May 2.

Police asked that the university first provide proof that the encampment “presents an imminent danger,” reported the paper, citing a source familiar with the matter.

If accurate (and the Philadelphia police refused to confirm or deny the report), it suggests the PPD is creating a new standard for enforcing the law. As the university points out, “The encampment itself violates the university’s facilities policies.”

In response to JNS requests for clarification, the police said, “We do not publicly discuss specific planning or engagement strategies related to ongoing situations. Our response will be based on the specific circumstances of each situation.”

The office of the interim university president was also vague, telling JNS, “We have reached out to the City of Philadelphia to ensure we have the necessary resources to keep our community safe. The Mayor’s Office has asked for more information, and we are providing it.”

The protesters may have sympathy among senior public officials. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a George Soros-funded DA sharply criticized for his soft-on-crime policies, visited the protesters three times, saying the purpose of his third visit on May 2 was “to find out what the truth is.”