BOOKS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Glaring Sign of Rot Within the CIA If there’s a new administration in January 2025, it will have its work cut out for it. Fred Fleitz

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/22/a-glaring-sign-of-rot-within-the-cia/

In his powerful new book, Neutering the CIA: Why Us Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-term Consequences, former CIA analyst John Gentry discusses how the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda has harmed national security by elevating the goals of left-wing identity politics as paramount in the selection and promotion of officers. For example, late last month, the Financial Times revealed that a CIA officer posted pro-Palestinian images on her Facebook page and a selfie photo with the caption “Free Palestine.”

The agency officer, later identified as Amy McFadden, reportedly posted at least one of these images to the Internet after the horrific October 7, Hamas attack on Israel in which more than 1,300 Jews were killed by Hamas terrorists, many of them raped and mutilated, and more than 250 taken hostage.

According to the New York Post, two weeks after the Hamas terrorist attack, the senior CIA official “changed her cover photo to an image of a man waving a Palestinian flag in a keffiyeh-patterned shirt — a design euphemistically referred to as a symbol of Palestinian ‘solidarity’ popularized by the late Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat.”

But McFadden is hardly the only example. A State Department employee publicly accused President Biden of being “complicit in genocide” by providing military assistance to our ally Israel. Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Middle East Affairs, tweeted directly at the President with his handle “@POTUS,” and also tweeted directly at the Vice President, “Embarrassingly out of touch @VP,” after Vice President Kamala Harris met with the Prime Minister of the U.K., our closest ally.

ANTI-SEMITISM, BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The year Israelophobia took over In 2023, the world’s oldest hatred returned with a vengeance. Jake Wallis Simons

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/23/the-year-israelophobia-took-over/

As the end of the year draws close, it’s clear the oldest hatred is back with a vengeance.

Following Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on 7 October, and Israel’s assault on Hamas in response, every day has brought new examples of Israelophobia. One episode from December that stands out in my mind was a statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols. He said that the Jewish state had shot two women in a church in Gaza ‘in a cold-blooded killing’. But how did the clergyman, from the comfort of his home in London and having carried out no investigation, know with such certainty that it was a ‘cold-blooded killing’?

Similarly, Alex Crawford, Sky News’ most prominent foreign correspondent, tweeted at the start of December that Israel was barring entry for journalists into Gaza in order to hide its ‘war crimes’. Charges of ‘war crimes’ would need to be proven by a court of law. Yet without even being in Gaza, and presumably without any legal training, Crawford felt entitled to place the black cap of the hanging judge upon her head.

The ease with which supposedly impartial observers have unwittingly become activists belies something darker – the willingness to believe the very worst of the Jewish State. It has become commonplace to airily assert that Israel is committing ‘genocide’. And it has become commonplace to talk of its disregard for Palestinian life, especially the life of Palestinian children. Little wonder the fate of neonatal babies has been placed by Hamas at the very centre of its propaganda campaign. Hamas knows this will be lapped up by the world’s media. Why is this? Could it be because there has been a racist association between Jews and the murder of Gentile children since 1144, when the blood libel was invented in Norwich? Whether people realise it or not, the Israelophobia we see today contains dark echoes of an old anti-Semitism.

The rivers of anti-Semitism run deep. Fascinating research by two German economic historians, Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, has revealed that areas of Germany in which people burned Jews at the stake in the 14th century, blaming them for the Black Death, were more likely to vote for the Nazis 600 years later. This is despite the fact that Jews had been absent from the regions in question for 400 of those years. This illustrates how, once it has taken hold, the potent virus of anti-Semitism can be passed down through the generations, inclining people to believe stories, as George Orwell once put it, ‘that could not possibly be true’.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The road to autocracy The woke left, the reactionary right and the corporate oligarchy are all dragging us towards tyranny. Joel Kotkin

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/23/the-road-to-autocracy/

Ernst Nolte’s Three Faces of Fascism examined the three devastating ideologies that led to the undermining of European democracy in the 1930s. Today, democratic life is also under threat – and there are also three basic forms that this authoritarian threat takes.

The most pervasive comes from the so-called progressive left. The second represents the reactionary response from the right. These two forces are like cats or snakes forced into bags, biting, clawing and spitting at each other.

The most dangerous form of potential autocracy, however, comes not from these extremes, but from the corporate oligarchs. Although they often mimic the cultural memes of the left, the oligarchs, who constitute some of the world’s richest people, certainly do not favour a socialist revolution.

Today, the left revels most in intellectual vandalism, cancelling contrary ideas and shouting down dissenting voices. These ‘progressives’ have achieved virtual control of many key institutions – notably, the education system, the cultural industry and much of the media. In a reversal of traditional roles (once it was the right that tended to advocate censorship), left-wing journalists at places like the New York Times have become the biggest advocates of speech control, as so poignantly revealed in former opinion-section editor James Bennet’s recent exposé in The Economist.

These authoritarian attitudes are increasingly common among Democratic voters, notes a Real Clear Politics survey. Nearly a third of them think that Americans have ‘too much freedom’. This figure is far higher than among either Republicans or independents. And, it seems, education only makes matters worse. Although Ivy League schools have received much condemnation for inculcating these authoritarian attitudes, as Nate Silver points out, they are actually fairly common across all colleges. Universities serve as both the primary incubators and enforcers of ideological conformism. The communities they dominate – such as Boston, Massachusetts – are some of the most intolerant in the US, according to the Atlantic.

Schools like Harvard, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have long harassed and even forced out faculty who deviate from the accepted norms. As many as 20 campuses in the US ask professors to sign a pledge to support the official campus doctrines on ‘diversity’. Presumably this does not mean diversity of opinion. These pledges eerily reprise the ‘loyalty’ oaths of the Cold War era.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Global Empire of Palestine The Palestinians have something better than a state. They have the backing of today’s worldwide power brokers. Lee Smith

Posted By on December 23rd, 2023

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/global-empire-of-palestine

Polls showing that Palestinians in the West Bank as well as Gaza continue to celebrate and support Hamas, with nearly 75% backing the Oct. 7 massacre that killed 1,200 in southern Israel, would seem to dash U.S. policymakers’ hopes of gaining momentum toward establishing a Palestinian state.

But for the Palestinians, that’s irrelevant. Why should they bother with arduous negotiations leading to compromise over two non contiguous plots of land when they already have something far greater and much rarer? Empire.

The ongoing marches around the world to “flood” Western cities, college campuses, and government office buildings, and halt traffic on major arteries and thoroughfares in support of Hamas, are evidence that the Palestinians have managed to create something much loftier than a mere political arrangement of institutions and offices that would make them no different from the 193 members of the United Nations. With Oct. 7 representing the high-water mark of their long campaign against the Jews, and Americans, the Palestinians have called forth from the nations those who are ready to awaken and celebrate the new spirit of the age.

Since Oct. 7, pro-Palestinian protesters—Arab and Muslim immigrants joined by locals—have filled the streets of European and North American cities with crowds of thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands in Berlin, Washington, Stockholm, Paris, Toronto, Oslo, Chicago, London, Rome, Los Angeles, and others. In Glasgow last week, they shut down a Zara’s outlet because, according to pro-Palestinian activists, the retail giant’s advertising campaign featuring mannequins wrapped in white cloth resembled dead Gazans. Students at Harvard University can’t study in Widener Library or walk to class without being confronted by mobs calling for Israel to be emptied of Jews “from the river to the sea.” It’s as bad or worse at other elite universities.

By continually ‘revitalizing’ the Palestinians, the stewards of global affairs have engendered something that by definition cannot survive in nature on its own: a society that celebrates death as its highest value.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The revival of an ancient calumny In response to the genocidal Hamas agenda, churches have turned on its Jewish victims Melanie Phillips

Posted By on December 22nd, 2023

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-revival-of-an-ancient-calumny?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

There’s an unmistakable drumbeat to the antisemitism that’s erupted across the west in the wake of the October 7 pogrom. In response to the genocidal Jew-hatred fuelling Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs, an even older form of the oldest hatred has surfaced— Christian hostility to the Jews.

The wholly unwarranted western condemnation of the Israel Defence Forces for causing an allegedly disproportionate death rate among Gaza civilians echoes the ancient Christian calumny that the Jews are killers motivated by revenge and blood lust. The churches themselves are explicitly fuelling this demonisation.

Last Saturday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem claimed in a statement that “a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war. No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”

This incendiary allegation was repeated uncritically as fact across the western media.

The following day, however, Fox News reported an IDF statement that an incident took place instead “near the Latin Church in the Shejayia area,” a different church altogether in another part of Gaza where IDF troops had “operated against a threat that they identified in the area of the church”.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“The More Things Change, the More They do Change” Sydney Williams

Posted By on December 22nd, 2023

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Since the Industrial Revolution, the world has seen rapid change, driven by new inventions, most for the better. My grandparents grew up before cars, washing machines, airplanes, or telephones. My parents grew up before radios, jet planes, atom bombs, or Social Security. I grew up without television, computers, microwave ovens, seat belts, and even before zip codes and valium. My children grew up without cell phones, the internet, Sony PlayStations, DVDs, e-mail, or social media.

Are we better off for these inventions? Yes, most have enhanced our lives, and the world is thankful that it was America, not the Nazis, that first produced the atom bomb. Technological advances have freed up time, made jobs safer, improved living standards, and made lives more comfortable. But are we happy? Again, yes; according to Gallup, Americans are generally satisfied with their lives.

Nevertheless, as time rushes by I think of what my grandchildren will never experience: gliding through the park on strapped-on roller skates, rolling up a car window, or emptying an ice tray. They will never use a fountain pen, type a letter on a Smith-Corona, or open a can of peas. They will never play tennis with a wooden racquet, lace a pair of ski boots, or float off on an inner tube. They will never call a friend on a dial phone, pay a bill with Travelers Checks, or read a roadmap. They will never have to get up to change the TV channel, or handle carbon paper. They may never read a print newspaper, use a handkerchief, or mess with a window air-conditioning unit. And their children may never have to pump gas!

Will they miss what they don’t know? Probably not. Do you miss skis with long thongs, tire chains when roads are snow covered, shoveling coal, or using the choke to give your car the proper fuel-air mixture?

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Killing Civilians? Canada Should Recall its Own Record Before Lecturing Israel by Rafael Medoff

Posted By on December 22nd, 2023

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/381508

The prime minister of Canada recently blasted Israel for accidentally killing civilians in Gaza— even though the Canadians deliberately killed German civilians in World War II. 

    Hypocrisy? Cynical indifference to the historical record? Perhaps a little bit of both.

    The Canadian Royal Air Force was a participant in the Allies’ strategy of “area bombing” in World War II, the policy of attacking civilian areas in order to undermine the German public’s morale. Canadian bombers took part in some of the war’s most famous strikes on civilian targets—including the bombing of Hamburg in July 1943, which left 40,000 dead, and the attack on Dresden in February 1945, which killed tens of thousands more. 

    The bombings were reported in the Canadian press at the time, and nobody protested. The Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, for example, reporting on July 30, 1943 about one of the attacks on Hamburg, noted: “A great many Canadian bombers participated in this attack as they have in every Hamburg raid since the round-the-clock bombings began last week-end.” 

    And that’s not all.

    Canadian troops fought a storied urban battle in World War II that had more than a few similarities to the situation in Gaza today: enemy fighters holed up in underground tunnels, savage house to house fighting, booby-traps everywhere—and more than a few civilian casualties. 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Miracle in Hell: The Baby Twins Who Survived a Massacre On October 7, Hamas left two infants orphaned. I spoke to the aunt and uncle now helping raise them. By Bari Weiss

Posted By on December 22nd, 2023

https://www.thefp.com/p/miracle-in-hell-the-baby-twins-who

On October 7, Hamas terrorists stormed into the home of Hadar and Itay Berdichevsky in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the Israeli communities along the Gaza border. Hadar and Itay—both 30 years old—were butchered in their own home.

Miraculously, their 10-month-old twins survived. The babies were found—rescued by the IDF—14 hours later, crying in their cots. Their parents’ bodies lie in pools of blood around them.

Today on Honestly, we’re talking with the twins’ aunt and uncle, Maya and Dvir Rosenfeld, who are now helping raise their orphaned twin nephews. Maya and Dvir also survived the massacre on Kfar Aza that day. They hid in their safe room for more than 24 hours with their own baby boy—holding their hands over his mouth to keep him quiet—as they heard the terrible sounds of their neighborhood being turned into a slaughterhouse around them.

Maya and Dvir flew to L.A. last week to share their family’s story. They’re doing this—even in the midst of mourning the loss of family, even while trying to recover from this unspeakable terror and tragedy—because they cannot understand how there are people who either don’t know, don’t believe, or simply don’t care about what happened that day. Or about the over 100 remaining hostages in Gaza.

There are so many stories from October 7 that need to be told. We’ve told some of them on this show. And still, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what happened that day, of the thousands upon thousands of stories—individual, human stories of horror and tragedy—each one deserving of being shared with the world. 

This one today represents a little light in a sea of darkness. These innocent babies—who will not remember the terror of October 7—represent both senseless tragedy and unbelievable bravery. Both pain and hope. Both ultimate despair and miracle beyond belief. Both death. . . and life. 

Our full conversation is available on Honestly (click here to listen) or as a video, which we are embedding below. And underneath that is an edited excerpt. —BW

EDUCATION Comments turned off

What’s Really at Stake With ‘Harvard’ Roger Kimball

Posted By on December 22nd, 2023

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/whats-really-at-stake-with-harvard-5548875?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp

The appalling testimony by the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania before the House Education Committee earlier this month has been the subject of widespread criticism, ridicule, and head-shaking surprise.

Asked by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) whether calling for the genocide of Jews would contravene their institutions’ rules of conduct, all three temporized that it would depend on the “context.

Clearly, they had all been prepped by the same lawyers, or at least lawyers who themselves had been prepped by the same head office.

The public response was quick and brutal.

The president of UPenn, Liz Magill, was forced out within days, as was the chairman of Penn’s board.

When Harvard’s board of overseers met in an emergency session, many predicted that Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, would suffer the same fate.

I could have reassured them that that wasn’t going to happen.

Why?

For the same reason I believe Ms. Gay was appointed president: because she’s black and ideologically on page with the progressive—i.e., anti-white, anti-American—mindset that has taken over elite education like a parasite inhabiting its host.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Northwestern University’s Gaslighting on Antisemitism Zach Kessel

Posted By on December 22nd, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/northwestern-universitys-gaslighting-on-antisemitism/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=third

Northwestern University will face off against the University of Utah in its NCAA football bowl game on Saturday. During a commercial break, the Jewish advocacy group Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF) will air an advertisement calling out Northwestern University president Michael Schill for his lackadaisical approach to antisemitism on his campus. 

On Wednesday, the university responded to the news of the ad campaign:

Northwestern University is aware of a planned advertising campaign by an outside, unaffiliated advocacy group alleging that the University and President Michael Schill are not taking a strong enough stand against antisemitism on campus.

These are outlandish claims not based on facts, including the claim that “student and faculty groups ‘resoundingly support’ Hamas Terrorism.”

Moreover, President Schill has been outspoken condemning antisemitism and the terrorist attack on Israel and has taken several proactive steps to address antisemitism on campus, including the establishment of the President’s Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate.

Acts that violate our codes of conduct will continue to be immediately addressed and individuals will be held accountable under University policies and procedures.

Northwestern does not tolerate antisemitism or discriminatory acts against any members of its community. Northwestern will not stand idly by as outside groups push false narratives to harm the University and our community.