ISRAEL Comments turned off

An Israeli ‘Pause’ Would Help Hamas Why would the jihadists give up their hostage leverage so easily? Meanwhile, Hezbollah blinks—for now.

Posted By on November 4th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-gaza-hamas-pause-antony-blinken-joe-biden-5265b7fd?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden has been stalwart in backing Israel’s right to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7 massacre. But a political backlash is growing, in the Democratic Party and abroad, to rein in Israel before it can achieve its military objectives. Is the Administration’s support beginning to crack?

Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Israel Friday to deliver a mixed message: Defeat Hamas—“there cannot and must not be a return to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo”—but pause the fighting and think about a two-state solution for Palestinians “not tomorrow, not after the war, but today.”

He may want to hold off on that last desire. After Hamas used Gaza to carry out massacres, and with some 200,000 Israelis now internally displaced, creating a new Palestinian state near Israel’s big cities sounds reckless even to Israeli doves. Maybe some time down the road.

Mr. Blinken presented “humanitarian pauses” as critical to protecting Gazans, getting them aid and freeing Israeli and U.S. hostages. The “pause” idea was embraced by Mr. Biden Wednesday in response to an anti-Israel protester’s hectoring for a cease-fire. “I think we need a pause,” the President said. “A pause means give time to get the prisoners out.”

On Thursday 13 Senate Democrats echoed that call. Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) even advised Israeli generals to rethink their “current operational approach.”

The President may conciliate some Democrats to his left, but a pause would halt Israel’s advance and momentum in exchange for uncertain gains. Mr. Blinken acknowledged that Israel has raised “legitimate questions” about “how to connect a pause to the release of hostages, how to ensure that Hamas doesn’t use these pauses or arrangements to its own advantage.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Another New War? Azerbaijan’s Heroes: Soldiers Who Behead Armenians by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20123/new-war-armenia-azerbaijan

After Azerbaijan besieged and starved 120,000 Christian Armenians in the Republic of Artsakh in the South Caucuses for nine months, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan bombed Artsakh’s communities.

Hundreds of civilians, including children, were murdered. Almost all the Armenians of Artsakh have fled: they know that after all military raids, Armenians who have fallen into the hands of the Azerbaijani military have been treated with maximum cruelty.

Beheading and mutilating Armenians appears to be a long-standing tradition of Azeri soldiers. These actions are promoted and rewarded by the State of Azerbaijan. Azeri soldiers who commit such ISIS-like war crimes not only escape accountability and are never prosecuted, rather they are treated as national heroes by their government.

During Azerbaijan’s military incursion into Armenia in September 2022, Azeri soldiers raped, mutilated and slaughtered a 36-year-old Armenian woman who served in the Armenian forces. They then posted a video demonstrating their war crime on social media. In it, the dead woman appears naked, with both of her arms and legs dismembered. One of her eyes is gouged out. A severed finger appears to be sticking out of her mouth, and another appears out of her private parts…. The Azeri soldiers videotaping can be heard laughing and joking in the background.

So, will the US finally hold the government of Azerbaijan to account? Will it cut US military aid to Azerbaijan? Will it once again watch as Turkey and Azerbaijan massacre more Armenians and invade more Armenian lands?

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Virulent Antisemitism and the Rot at Our Universities By Charles Lipson –

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/11/02/virulent_antisemitism_and_the_rot_at_our_universities_149995.html

It is time for blunt talk. Jewish students at universities are being harassed and threatened in unprecedented numbers, with disturbing vitriol. That’s more than a danger for those students. It is a profound danger for a liberal, tolerant democracy. It is time to call it out and oppose it. It’s time to end it.

The attacks and violent demonstrations shine a particularly harsh light on the sorry state of higher education. The public has watched mass demonstrations against Israel on campus after campus. The demonstrators never mention the victims of the Hamas massacres, never condemn the terrorists, and often go beyond their support for innocent Palestinians to cheer Hamas.

University leaders, who postured on every fashionable issue, have responded with bland, spineless statements. It’s no surprise that parents are rethinking which universities their children should attend, and major donors are doubting whether universities are worthy of their support.

For Jewish students, these threats are real. They face harassment, intimidation, and bullying. The situation has been deteriorating for years, but the scale and ferocity of the harassment rose dramatically after Hamas launched its terror attack.

When some brave students have spoken out in Israel’s defense, they have faced the jackboots of campus bullies. Instead of protecting those students, universities have abandoned their fundamental duty to ensure a safe environment and promote open discourse about serious issues. The situation is most toxic at elite universities and schools in major cities, where anti-Israeli students are reinforced by angry local activists.

It is too mild to say, “This is the gravest, most antisemitic environment Jewish students have faced in recent years.” It’s worse than that. This is the most hostile environment Jewish students have ever faced in America.

Never before have Jewish students been subjected to this kind of venom simply for their heritage. True, their admission was limited by quotas until the mid-1960s. True, they were denied membership in fraternities and sororities and routinely excluded from the faculty. But they were never subjected to this kind of raw hatred. As the dean of Berkeley’s law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, a man of the left, put it, “Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Case For A Full Israeli Victory Over Hamas in Gaza By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/case-full-israeli-victory-over-hamas-gaza-207129

Israel is facing all-too-predictable global pressure to scale back its military operation in Gaza to spare innocent lives and prevent a regional conflict that could draw in Iran, the United States, and other nations.

But critics have it backward. Those concerned about human rights and those seeking peace should be rooting for Israel’s full-scale destruction of Hamas—however long it takes or bloody it becomes. That may sound harsh, but it’s the only path to more human rights and more peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.

On human rights, Israelis deserve to live without fear of rocket attack, infiltration, and slaughter from across their border. But Gaza’s two million Palestinians also deserve peace as well as the prospect of a better life—both of which will remain elusive not because they live next to Israel but because they live under Hamas.

Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in a violent coup in 2007 and has ruled it since with an iron fist. It allows no elections; permits no free press; arrests, beats, and tortures its critics; and murders those suspected of collaborating, or seeking peace, with Israel.

Over the last sixteen years, Hamas has instigated multiple wars with Israel by launching thousands of rockets or attacking the Jewish state in other ways. It then hides its fighters (as it’s now doing) in hospitals, mosques, and other population centers in order to boost civilian casualties and turn global opinion against Israel after it responds and the deaths mount.

Nothing would reduce innocent deaths in Israel and Gaza more than Israel’s total victory over Hamas. Those pressuring Israel to ease its counter-attacks would, over the long term, subject Israelis to more terror and Palestinians to more rounds of Hamas-instigated war, more death, no freedom, and little opportunity.

For regional and global peace and stability, the case for a total Israeli victory is equally robust: it centers on the impact that Israel’s victory—along with parallel and supportive U.S. policies—would likely have on the aggressive aspirations of critical regional and global powers.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Poll: Most Americans Believe AI Will Lead to More Misinformation in 2024 By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/11/03/poll-most-americans-believe-ai-will-lead-to-more-misinformation-in-2024/

A new poll released on Friday shows that a majority of Americans believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to more misinformation being spread on the Internet during the 2024 presidential election.

According to The Hill, the poll from AP-NORC and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy found that 58% of Americans believe AI will lead to an increase in election misinformation. Among respondents who said they have “heard a lot or some about AI” 61% believed in the threat of more misinformation.

When asked about possible actions to combat the misuse of AI, 66% said they support the federal government banning AI-generated images from being used in political ads. Among those 66%, 78% were Democrats and 66% were Republicans.

When asked if the government should ban all AI-generated content from political ads, 54% of Americans said yes. On another question, 65% said they support technology companies and social media platforms explicitly labeling AI-generated content as such, with another 60% saying they support social media companies banning AI-generated images that are false or misleading.

The poll featured a sample size of 1,017 Americans, and was conducted between October 19th and October 23rd.

The rise of AI has begun to draw the attention of elected officials, with Joe Biden issuing an executive order on Monday aimed at addressing concerns regarding AI, from national security to threats to American labor. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is set to hold a forum focusing on AI and its impact on elections.

The use of AI-generated images has already impacted several campaigns in the 2024 cycle. The presidential campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) was widely criticized after its official “DeSantis War Room” account posted a video that included several fake, AI-generated images of President Trump and Anthony Fauci embracing.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Barbarism: Tape emerges of Hamas terrorist ‘playing’ with severed heads By Monica Showalter

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/11/barbarism_tape_emerges_of_hamas_terrorist_playing_with_severed_heads.html

Is there any sicker, viler, more demonic movement in the world today than the Hamas terrorist organization?

The latest from them is that Hamas’s terrorists, fresh from murdering 1,400 people on October 7, blood undoubtedly still dripping from their hands, made a tape of themselves describing how they “played” with severed heads of their Israeli victims:

According to William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

Audio was recovered of the terrorists admitting they played with decapitated heads while at Kibbutz Nirim:

“They cut off their heads with knives…. take photos of the heads as the guys are playing with them.”

And of course, they took selfies of themselves doing it.

These savages are depraved beyond belief. Did someone ask them if they had fun? They have a funny idea of fun.

It’s not the first we have heard of Hamas’s depravities and atrocities in that horror attack they conducted on innocent Israeli civilians on that terrible day last October.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Israeli flag torched, flyers for captive Israelis trampled at anti-Israel rally in New York City

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://worldisraelnews.com/israeli-flag-torched-flyers-for-captive-israelis-trampled-at-pro-palestine-rally-in-new-york/?utm_source=

Demonstrators trample posters of Israelis held captive by Hamas during protest in New York City.

Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters clashed on the streets of New York Thursday evening, outside the offices of the chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Hurling insults at pro-Israeli demonstrators, a number of pro-Palestinian protesters tore down posters of Israelis held captive by the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, and trampled flyers of Israelis reported missing since the October 7th Hamas invasion of southwestern Israel.

One of the pro-Palestinian protesters set an Israeli flag on fire, while a pro-Israeli demonstrator attempted to carry the flag off, before being kicked by a protester wearing a Keffiyeh.

The New York Police Department arrested one person for disorderly conduct.

A number of anti-Israel demonstrations on and around college campuses in the U.S. have led to harassment of Jewish students and even violent attacks on pro-Israel demonstrators.

At Harvard, a Jewish student was mobbed by anti-Israel protesters, including the editor of the Harvard Law Review.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Would The ‘Woke’ Movement Please Hurry Up And Die Already?

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/11/03/would-the-woke-movement-please-hurry-up-and-die-already/

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of pundits, columns, and articles predict the imminent demise of the odious and anti-American “woke” movement. As Shakespeare once said, ” ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” But if woke is indeed passing on, it sure is taking its time.

What do we mean by “woke”? It’s the extreme-left mindset encouraged by the “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” movement, the ugly offspring of Marxism and critical race theory. Its intent is all-inclusive, covering the entirety of culture, social interactions, and commerce. Indeed, the movement’s ultimate goal is to plant a permanent flag of ideological conquest in your brain so you’ll be frightened to transgress even a little bit of the thought boundaries they’ve set for you.

It’s working.

From once-sensible cops in Britain tearing down posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, to Hollywood’s awful woke remakes of classic entertainment, to drag queens parading in children’s classrooms and events, to our own woke military, “woke” now seems culturally pervasive, almost inescapable.

It’s a sick, inhumane, and ultra-Orwellian mindset that is being served daily to our children via the forced feeding tube of public education, which is now run not by local boards but by ultra-woke teachers’ unions and allied radicals. Hollywood and social media, with their pervasive censorship cultures, double down on the thought control.

The woke indoctrination may begin in elementary school, but it continues and intensifies at the college level. Young Americans have never been so disenchanted with their country, its culture, and its shimmering promise of a better life and liberty than they are today. All thanks to the woke movement, now firmly in control of higher education.

But in case you’re wondering, this is an old script, nothing new at all. Former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin reportedly put it this way: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

We’re pretty sure it’s real because we found it in “Inspiring Quotes.” Hey, nothing is more inspiring than your children being brainwashed by a communist tyrant, right? The far-left wokesters clearly learned from Lenin. And, just like communism, woke seeks to become a secular religion, replacing all the old ones.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How Hamas Won Hearts and Minds on the American Left For 30 years, the terror organization has made a concerted effort to appeal to Western intellectuals. By Lorenzo Vidino

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-hamas-won-hearts-and-minds-on-the-american-left-1abafc2f?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Support for Hamas on college campuses and in city streets has shocked Americans. But we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the fruit of an influence campaign dating back at least 30 years.

In October 1993, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wiretapped a Philadelphia hotel room where a dozen senior Hamas members—some of them U.S.-based—had gathered. The men had called the meeting weeks after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. For days they debated how to sabotage the agreement and generate support for Hamas among American Muslims, the political class and wider society. They correctly foresaw that the U.S. government would designate Hamas a terrorist organization and agreed on a strategy to frame the conflict in religious terms for Muslims while using more-palatable frames for non-Muslim Americans. They plotted to create an array of mainstream organizations to conduct this dual-track work.

“Let’s not hoist a large Islamic flag, and let’s not be barbaric-talking,” one of the participants said. “We will remain a front so that if the [terror designation] happens, we will benefit from the new developments instead of having all of our organizations classified and exposed.”

“I swear by Allah that war is deception,” another said. “Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way.”

Thirty years later, this strategy has proved effective. Widespread support for Hamas’s barbaric actions on Oct. 7 didn’t come out of thin air. Several things gave life to the phenomenon—from the identification of Israel with “white privilege” to old-fashioned anti-Semitism—but the terror group’s networks in the U.S. and Europe played a key role.

Now run largely by Western-born activists, these networks understand how politics and media narratives work in the West. They frame the conflict in religious terms to local Muslim communities, labeling Israelis as “infidels” and evoking hadiths about the killing of Jews. On college campuses those same networks use the language of postcolonial theory to tar the Israelis as “European settlers.” Unsurprisingly, a few days ago, a Hamas leader told a Vice.com journalist that “the same type of racism that killed George Floyd is being used by [Israel] against the Palestinians”—a comparison tailored to the ears of Western progressives.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Boycott Formula How conservatives can restrain left-wing corporate culture. Christopher Rufo

Posted By on November 3rd, 2023

Conservatives have recently scored surprise victories against left-wing corporate culture, with successful pressure campaigns against a trio of blue-chip companies—Disney, Target, and Bud Light—that have revealed the potential of a culture-war tactic once considered the Left’s stock-in-trade: the consumer boycott.

The campaigns are notable because they drew blood, figuratively speaking. Disney, which promised to embed radical gender theory in its children’s programming, watched its stock price plummet and signaled a retreat from the culture war. Target, which featured “breast binders” as part of its seasonal “Pride Collection,” saw a decline in sales and promised to “pause, adapt, and learn.” Bud Light featured a transgender “influencer” in an advertising campaign, sending its reputation and sales into freefall.

What lessons can be drawn from these examples? And how can conservatives use boycotts to fight left-wing cultural capture?

To answer these questions, let’s consult the academic literature on consumer boycotts. First, it’s important to understand the genesis—or, in narrative terms, the “inciting incident”—of a potential boycott. Research suggests that in successful boycotts, activists often highlight a firm’s “egregious act,” a transgression of some deeply held value among consumers, and channel the resulting “negative arousal” into a boycott. To expand participation, activists must create a sense that partaking in the boycott provides an opportunity to “make a difference,” change company behavior, and join in a widely shared cause. The research also suggests that boycotts must begin with a sense of optimism, as the “perceived efficacy“ of a campaign significantly determines its likelihood of success. 

Next, the mechanics. Northwestern University professor Brayden King collected data from 133 boycott campaigns conducted between 1990 and 2005 and used statistical analysis to identify which tactics are most correlated with success. King argues that boycott campaigns succeed through “market disruption,” targeting a firm’s stock price, and “mediated disruption,” targeting a firm’s public reputation. These two strategies are mutually reinforcing, as economic damage can lead to greater media coverage, and greater media coverage of a company’s difficulties can lead to economic damage.