EDUCATION Comments turned off

Universities Give Students Milk and Cookies, Cancel Classes Over Trump Victory Encouraging childish, leftist clowns. Robert Spencer

Posted By on November 12th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/universities-give-students-milk-and-cookies-cancel-classes-over-trump-victory/

Leftists the world over are in tears and hysterics over Donald Trump’s historic victory on Tuesday, but nowhere are they more desolate and depressed these days than on America’s college and university campuses. Students are at an age when passions run high, and as our institutions of higher learning are now little more than indoctrination centers for Antifa, it’s understandable that the mood on campus these days is more than a little dark.

College and university administrators and professors, however, are only making matters worse by pandering to the students’ ridiculous grief, and even encouraging it, rather than reminding them that life is tough and they just have to get on with it. This is largely, of course, because those far-left administrators and professors are just as immature as their students.

The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday that “after Donald Trump’s historic reelection sent despair rippling across college campuses, grieving professors at America’s top universities canceled classes, rescheduled exams, and promised to forgive poor grades. Schools offered students milk, cookies, puzzles, Legos, and ‘destress sessions.’”

Milk and cookies? Puzzles? Legos? Are we talking about universities here, or about kindergarten? Given the academic level of these woke institutions today, it’s essentially the same thing, and even the most elite universities are engaging in this silly grandstanding.

One Columbia University professor wrote to her students: “I hope you are hanging in there. I have been think [sic] of you over the last few days. [If] you don’t feel up for class, absences today will be excused.” A Barnard prof wrote in a similar vein: “In recognition of the increased stressed [sic] some of you might be feeling because of the election results, I will offer to replace your midterm Exam 2 grade with your Final Exam grade if better.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Nobody’s Coming to the Big Global Warming Conference Except the UK PM and the Taliban. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on November 12th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/nobodys-coming-to-the-big-global-warming-conference/

What if you threw a big green party and nobody came?

The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties or COP29 is happening in glorious Azerbaijan but the usual folks flying huge jets to warn us about the danger of using fossil fuels are mostly staying home.

Except for the Taliban who showed up to demand money. (Not a joke.)

Biden has trouble walking across sand. Xi has better things to do with his time. About the only G7 leader to show up is UK PM Keir Starmer (unless you want to pretend that Italy’s Meloni is a world leader) who waddled around like a ridiculous dark and mumbled something about the importance of being green so all the old white British pensioners freeze to death over the winter.

‘I have repeatedly emphasised the importance of global leadership when it comes to the climate challenge, and therefore it is very important for me to come to Cop,” PM Starmer whined. He said there was ‘a global race’ to be the leader on renewable energy, adding: ‘I want us to win the race.’

That’s like wanting to win the world curling championship. Nobody else is even showing for this one.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Alert: America Must Advance Leadership Role in Clean Fusion Power by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on November 12th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21113/clean-fusion-power

As the world discovered when the United States deployed the power of atomic energy to end World War II, the nation that has the means to harness this incredible force in any of its many forms has the means of dictating terms to the rest of the globe.

So it should come as no surprise that China is devoting financial, technological, and educational resources to harness what is commonly called, “controlled fusion.” Or, to be specific, to place the enormous energy that powers the Sun inside a reactor that, in turn, could replace virtually every fossil fuel facility on the planet, running on a virtually inexhaustible supply of “clean” fuel.

From subduing the political power of those enemy nations seeking to use their oil and gas reserves to bully America, to addressing climate change concerns, controlled fusion could be as powerful an advance as fire and the wheel.

The Chinese fully recognize the implications of owning this kind of strategic achievement.

Industry reports suggest the Chinese government is putting billions into developing laboratories required to study how to create a sustainable controlled fusion reaction. It is far from easy, as it requires extremely high heat and enormous pressures. One energy industry report says:

“They are training a growing cadre of scientists, with a goal of training 1,000 new plasma physicists to support this program. This plan by the Chinese government shows a real commitment to fusion and makes them a possible front-runner in the global rush to viable fusion technology.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Will The Democrats Ever Allow The Country To Heal?

Posted By on November 12th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/11/12/will-the-democrats-ever-allow-the-country-to-heal/

It’s hard to know just how much of the country hates Donald Trump. The easy answer is about half. But that’s probably wrong. Much less than half of the country voted against him last week and it would be a mistake to think that every one of those Americans hates the man. Surely a significant portion of Harris-Walz voters made their decisions simply because they either like Democratic policies or oppose the Republican agenda. If so, it would seem that Trump has an opportunity to unify a bitterly divided nation.

Still, there’s an angry, petty and vocal faction on the left that has no interest in unity because it thrives on acidity and hatred.

Social media and cable television provide a window into these dark minds infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. In the days after the election it’s been filled with academics and assorted university creatures raging like mental patients who should institutionalized; huffy celebrities threatening to leave the country; a Pravda press that has had nothing to contribute to civil discourse so instead spreads fresh lies and continues to condescend toward middle America; Never-Trumpers who’d rather the country become California than ever cast a vote for, or say a kind word about, the man; everyday Karens, whose steady stream of bile and instability has produced anxiety in their children; and a holier-than-everyone Barack Obama who up until recent weeks had been largely successful at hiding the fact that he’s a bitter man.

These people don’t seem to be ready to give up their animus. They still seek the social status they believe that hating Trump will give them. It’s their belief that whoever convinces their peers that they hate Trump the most is the winner.

Trump has plenty of reasons to make no effort to bring the country together. His opponents have hounded him like no other political figure in our history. He’s been the subject of dozens of vicious fabrications, a scandalous hoax, a pair of meritless impeachments, a duplicitous lawfare campaign, an unbroken string of slurs and two assassination attempts that were inspired by an endless stream of lies and venom.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Case of the Florida Scrub Jay Challenges the ESA’s Tyranny By Janet Levy

Posted By on November 11th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/11/the_case_of_the_florida_scrub_jay_challenges_the_esa_s_tyranny.html

As the name suggests, the Florida scrub jay lives exclusively in the scrublands of the Sunshine State. A medium-sized, long-tailed, blue-and-gray songbird, its call when perched on scrubs is a screechy scold that sends its tail up like a Roman catapult launching a rock. One of 15 bird species native to the continental U.S.—and allegedly threatened by loss of habitat—it is protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973.

But should protecting the bird take precedence over a citizen’s property rights when his land isn’t habitat suited to the bird? And doesn’t the arbitrary development fee that Florida counties imposed—a scrub jay fee, supposedly for offsetting the environmental impact of building on a property—amount to an exorbitant ransom?

These are among the questions raised in a federal lawsuit filed by Michael Colosi, a tech entrepreneur who hopes to build a house on a five-acre plot he recently bought in Punta Gorda, Charlotte County, Florida. Though he believes that his land, thick with pine and saw palmetto, is unsuited to the scrub jay, he is happy to adhere to the county’s habitat conservation plan (HCP) requirements, such as planting scrub oaks to encourage bird visits and avoiding land clearance during nesting season. But he refuses to pay the hefty $120,000 scrub jay fee for allowing him to build on his plot, for he plans to use only an acre or so for a house and garage, leaving the rest in its natural state.

The lawsuit—in which Charlotte County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the U.S. Department of the Interior are defendants—is in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Fort Myers Division). The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is representing Colosi pro bono in a suit challenging the fee as an unconstitutional infringement of Colosi’s right to develop and use his property. It also challenges the unconstitutional regulation under federal law—in this case, the ESA—of an intrastate species of no commercial or economic value, and hence not under the Commerce Clause’s purview.

Before discussing the precedents that the PLF cites in the lawsuit, some background on the ESA is in order. The act, which the FWS and U.S. NOAA Fisheries Services administer, is not only the most wide-ranging in the U.S. but is one that unaccountable bureaucrats in the administrative state rampantly abuse through overreach.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Seth Barron Resisting the Resistance Donald Trump should defy national injunctions, which are constitutionally dubious.

Posted By on November 11th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/resisting-the-anti-trump-resistance

Donald Trump soundly defeated Kamala Harris, regaining the presidency and winning a second, nonconsecutive term. The polls, which underestimated Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020, again undersold the breadth of his appeal.

Trump has pulled off one of the most startling second acts in American history. On January 6, 2021, in the midst of an embarrassing and politically catastrophic riot, Hope Hicks, former Trump advisor and communications director, texted an associate, “In one day he ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local proud boys chapter.” Following multiple indictments and trials, it was assumed that Trump would end his days in ignominy. Yet he rose from a reputational nadir to regain the most powerful office in the world.

It is beyond question that Trump is an electoral genius. It remains to be seen, however, whether he is as capable at politics—at governing—as he is at getting elected. Trump’s first term was obstructed even before it began, and he was unable to achieve much of his domestic agenda. For those interested in Trump II’s success, the failures of Trump I offer valuable lessons.

Upon entering office, Trump was embroiled in the Russia-collusion hoax, concocted by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the outgoing Obama administration, and the tentacles of the intelligence community, which used a compliant media to bind Trump “seven ways to Sunday,” in the words of Senator Chuck Schumer. Trump faced constant negative press and a lengthy and tedious investigation, culminating in an impeachment whose specifics have been forgotten.

Since the Russia hoax was arguably foisted on Trump, it may be unfair to insist that he should have handled it differently. The Trump team ought nevertheless to anticipate the return of the anti-Trump “Resistance,” and prepare to counter similar legal efforts to thwart the president and his agenda as he embarks on a new term in office.

Consider the response to Trump I’s “Muslim ban.” Shortly after taking office in 2017, Trump issued a series of executive orders aimed at protecting the border and enhancing national security. Executive Order 13780, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” restricted travel from seven Muslim-majority nations, though it did not mention religion; nor did it apply to dozens of other Muslim-majority countries.

ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Mathias Döpfner: Make Germany More Jewish Again

Posted By on November 11th, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/mathias-dopfner-make-germany-more-jewish-again?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Last week, a mob rampaged through the streets of Amsterdam, ambushing and assaulting Jews. Anyone who appeared to be a supporter of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv was targeted by groups mostly consisting of young men from the city’s Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish communities. Just before the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, victims pleaded with their assailants “not Jewish, not Jewish.”

This shameful episode is only the latest example of antisemitism on Europe’s streets. It is the disgraceful consequence of an irresponsible migration policy that is equally receptive to Islamists and Holocaust deniers. Violent incidents have become more common since October 7, 2023, and the already shrinking population of European Jews is set to decline further as many Jews in the Netherlands, in France, and my country, Germany, consider emigrating. 

The decline, in Germany and Europe more generally, is greeted with a shrug. Such complacency is shameful. Particularly in Germany. The country can never make up for its historical guilt, but it could help ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Not only should Germany be working to persuade Jews to stay—we should throw open our doors to Jews who want to move here. Allow me to explain.

In his book Why the Germans? Why the Jews?, German historian Götz Aly exposes how antisemitism is deeply rooted in a destructive envy. He describes how, for centuries, people were not only envious of the outward successes of the Jews but also of something profound and ancient—a culture, a religion, a history that has continued to exist across millennia. 

“The envious person,” Aly surmises, “is always seeking a scapegoat.” The unsettling question he poses is “Can you be envious of someone you despise?” Jews were vilified as being “rootless,” although they possessed exactly what the Germans had been looking for: a clear identity and story. 

Envy, again, is a major root cause of the global spread of Islamist antisemitism. What we know from Germany’s painful history is that when antisemitic envy, and the envy of achievement, become the dominant zeitgeist, they stand in the way of knowledge, wealth, and progress. Instead, they produce delusion, poverty, and regression. What inevitably transpires is the opposite of meritocracy: “ineptocracy,” or the rule of the least capable. 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on November 11th, 2024

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Israel is at war on several fronts- a war against Hezbollah and Hamas and local terrorists and Iran’s proxies. This remarkable nation is also waging a 24/7 war against epidemics, cancer, drought, famine, crime and bigotry as Michael Ordman details below.  rsk

In the 10th Nov 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

At least five news articles featuring Israelis bravely responding to adversity.

A major Israeli medical discovery, trials and a new treatment for cancer.

Israel organizes vaccinations for over a million Gazan children.

9% of Time Magazine’s “Best inventions of 2024” are Israeli.

Israeli innovations are globally preventing accidents and catching criminals.

Thousands of Bedouin Arabs watch Israel’s first state-approved camel race.

Two vital new resources for teaching children about Israeli history.

 POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Standing tall again. (TY Hazel) Nati Ganon was seriously injured by Hamas terrorists at the Nova party on Oct 7 2023. After enduring nearly 400 grueling days of treatments and rehabilitation, Nati stands tall again and able to continue to raise his three children. See him dance with Israeli-Arab Zionist Yoseph Haddad (2nd link).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nova-survivor-who-lost-wife-on-oct-7-goes-home-after-almost-400-days-in-hospital/  https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-7/
 
Proud sisters. (TY Hazel) Despite losing their elder siblings at the hands of Hamas terrorists, Yael Eshel, sister of Sgt Roni Eshel, and Yuval Marciano, sister of Cpl Noa Marciano, have just begun their IDF service on the same day.  Their sisters were serving together on Oct 7 at the IDF’s Nahal Oz base near the Gaza border.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/younger-sisters-of-two-female-soldiers-killed-by-hamas-begin-their-idf-service/
 
From Sderot to the Technion, with nothing. Hila was planning to study at Israel’s Technion Institute on Oct 10, 2023. When Hamas attacked Sderot on Oct. 7, Hila had to evacuate her home, arriving at the Technion without any belongings. The Technion, however, made sure she had everything she needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WfhC77d6Hc
 
Farming under fire. Moshav Liman, just 1.3 miles from Lebanon, had a population of 850 before Oct 7.  Now, some 125 hardened Israelis continue to cultivate their small family farms. They include Kfir and Clarise who lived through bombardments in 1978, and the Lebanon wars of 1982 and 2006. They stayed then, as well.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/fortitude-under-fire-farmers-along-the-northern-border-stay-planted-despite-the-war/
 
Turning shelters into schoolrooms. (TY WIN) Kibbutz Yehiam near the Lebanese border, has converted its bomb shelters and protected rooms into classrooms. Now, over 110 students can locally learn instead of being driven on school buses to schools some half-an-hour away. When safe, children join from outside the kibbutz.
https://tps.co.il/articles/school-under-siege-kibbutz-yehiam-families-innovate-amid-daily-rocket-fire/
 
“Heros of Life”. Israeli emergency NGO United Hatzalah honored Oct 7 volunteers and victims at a “Heroes of Life” Memorial Ceremony in Jerusalem. The ceremony also paid tribute to United Hatzalah’s volunteers who played a pivotal role on Oct 7, and in the ensuing months, transporting wounded to hospitals while under fire.
https://israelrescue.org/en_GB/stories/united-hatzalah-honors-october-7th-volunteers-and-victims-at-heroes-of-life-memorial-ceremony/ 
 
Homeward bound. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Tekuma Administration – the government’s arm for rehabilitating the Gaza periphery – reveals that 87% (50,000 out of 64,000) of Gaza border residents have returned to their homes. 244 projects, totaling $1.7 billion, have been initiated, to rehabilitate the region.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/10/01/87-of-gaza-border-residents-have-returned-home-report-shows/
 
The first Haredi IDF combat brigade. The Tavetz training base in the Jordan Valley will serve as the training ground for the first cohort of ultra-Orthodox soldiers who will form part of a standard infantry brigade called “Hashmonayim”. It is also the first entirely new regular infantry brigade since the 1980s.
https://www.jns.org/idf-launches-first-ultra-orthodox-combat-brigade/
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-827522
 
Spurs fans sing for hostage. 70 fans of UK soccer team Tottenham Hotspur (“Spurs”) sang before their team’s match against Aston Villa, to publicize the plight of one of their own fans, Emily Damari. Emily was abducted by Hamas from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct 7 2023. She holds both British and Israeli citizenship.
https://www.jns.org/tottenham-hotspur-fans-sing-for-hamas-hostage/
 
US Jews support Israeli businesses. Since Oct 7 2023, American Jews have increased their purchases of Israeli Judaica by 134%. The study, conducted by business management students at the Jerusalem College of Technology, demonstrates American Jews’ solidarity with war-impacted Israeli businesses.
https://www.jns.org/study-u-s-jews-bought-134-more-israeli-judaica-since-oct-7/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Another antibody to combat cancer. Following last week’s Israeli cancer breakthrough (see here), now Weizmann Institute researchers have found an antibody (against CD84) that prevents tumors building molecular bridges from suppressing the immune system. Lab tests were successful at treating triple-negative breast cancer.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-antibody-treatment-targets-most-aggressive-breast-cancer/#:
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/burning-cancer%E2%80%99s-bridges
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(24)01271-3#fig1
 
Treatment for Esophageal cancer. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BeiGene has received Israeli Ministry of Health approval for its TEVIMBRA® to treat Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC) after chemotherapy.  It has also gone on sale in the USA.  https://ir.beigene.com/news/beigene-receives-israeli-ministry-of-health-approval-for-tevimbra-for-the-treatment-of-oesophageal-squamous/dc2e4d21-42f4-4545-af69-ba4e09a40194/ 
https://ir.beigene.com/news/beigene-announces-availability-of-tevimbra-in-u-s/1d4b131f-7226-4196-bbac-dc310930b1ad/   https://www.beigene.com/
 
Treatment for knee osteoarthritis. Denmark’s Medicines Agency has approved Allocetra cell therapy from Israel’s Enlivex (see here previously) for Phase II clinical trials on patients with osteoarthritis in the knee. 40% of men and 47% of women develop knee osteoarthritis in their lifetimes. Allocetra also treats Covid and cancer.
https://enlivex.com/investors/news-releases/enlivex-receives-authorization-from-the-danish-medicines-agency-to-initiate-the-phase-ii-stage-of-its-phase-i-ii-trial-of-allocetra-in-patients-with-moderate-to-severe-knee-osteoarthritis/
 
$17 million for autism research. (TY Yanky) Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Prof Haitham Amal (see here previously) is the only non-USA member of a new consortium focused on pioneering autism research. It has just been awarded a research grant of $17 million by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
https://international.huji.ac.il/news/hebrew-university%E2%80%99s-prof-haitham-amal-awarded-major-grant-pioneering-autism
 
Front-line soldier saves 3-year-old. (TY UWI) A three-year-old boy hospitalized in Jerusalem with a severe blood cancer got a new lease on life thanks to the selflessness of Matan Amir, a 21-year-old IDF soldier fighting in Gaza who was identified as a suitable bone marrow donor for the toddler.
https://tps.co.il/articles/gift-of-life-israeli-soldiers-selfless-bone-marrow-donation-saves-three-year-old/
 
Low blood sugar and green Med diet. An international study led by Israel’s Ben-Gurion University scientists showed controlling blood sugar levels is a significant key mechanism linking diet to slower brain aging. The 300-participant study was one of the longest and largest brain MRI trials in the world.
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/sygjvxrzje
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916524007457
 
Nobel prize winners’ Israel connection. The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA. Both men were awarded Israel’s Wolf Prize in 2014. Ruvkun, who is Jewish, won the Dan David Prize, headquartered at Tel Aviv University, in 2011.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/americans-victor-ambros-gary-ruvkun-win-nobel-prize-in-medicine-for-microrna-discovery/

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

After the election, the rage against white women The Democrats are once again shocked to discover that women do not vote in accordance with their genitals. Johanna Williams

Posted By on November 11th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/11/10/after-the-election-the-rage-against-white-women/

How quickly things change. At the start of this week, women voters were being feted as the voice of reason in America’s ‘gender-gap election’. To the Democratic elites, it was inconceivable that women would back Trump over a ‘joyful’ woman of colour. They assumed all they needed to do was remind women that in the privacy of the voting booth they alone choose who to endorse and the votes for Kamala Harris would come flooding in. It’s now clear that plenty of women took this advice to heart. But they voted for Trump, not Harris. As I wrote on spiked before the election, the idea that women would win it for Kamala was always likely to be ‘more hype than reality’.

With most votes now counted, we know this week’s result was not even close. At time of writing, Trump has almost five million more votes than Harris and has convincingly won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. This feat would be impossible without the votes of a huge number of women. Exit polls suggest the gender gap did exist but – at around 10 per cent – was far lower than Team Harris had expected. Women split 53 per cent for Harris, 45 per cent for Trump. This means that a smaller proportion of women voted for Harris this election than voted for either Clinton in 2016 or Biden in 2020. Younger women were more likely to have voted for Trump this time around than they did in 2020 and Hispanic women swung massively towards Trump. But there’s another group that backed Trump decisively: white women. More white women voted for Trump than Harris.

Now looking to apportion blame for Harris’s defeat, Democrats have these white women in the firing line. The very same women they courted so assiduously just days ago are now being chastised and insulted. The overarching sense is one of disappointment. Bloomberg contemplates with an almost audible sigh the ‘irony of women voting for abortion rights’, in many state referendums held on the same day as the national election, while also voting for Trump. ‘For millions, it didn’t matter that he was the man who bragged about overturning Roe vs Wade’, its columnist concludes. ‘White women doomed Kamala Harris and the Democrats – again’, notes the New Republic. The LA Times has the same take: ‘Democrats keep expecting white women to save them, and they keep getting burned.’ In other words: typical white women, always letting the side down. The ‘free to vote for who you like’ message did not age well.

The ‘white women who voted for Trump’ phenomenon has, inevitably, led to the rehabilitation of ‘Karen’ – the slur reserved for middle-class soccer moms.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Anti-Semitism and Western Decline John O’Sullivan

Posted By on November 11th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/asperities/anti-semitism-and-western-decline/

One year after October 7, the global reaction to the invasion of Israel by Hamas with all its barbarities has shown us that we are living in national societies and in an international order that are drastically different from those we had previously imagined. After a brief period of shock when all civilised people condemned the rapes and murders carried out by Hamas, the principal political impact over the last year has been a global upsurge of anti-Semitism shown, for instance, in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in New York, London, Berlin, and other cities across the West and—more alarmingly—in some of our greatest universities.

Were these demonstrations anti-Semitic or merely anti-Zionist? There is a logical distinction between the two terms. Some religious Jews have been hostile to Zionism since Herzl, and there was a popular movement of Christian Zionism in nineteenth-century Britain. But since the establishment of Israel in 1948 as a legitimate nation-state born under UN auspices and recognised in international law, reasonable and decent people have been Zionists at least in the practical sense that they accept the existence and legitimacy of the State of Israel. If they don’t—and, of course, some states and peoples don’t—then they’re engaged in a discourse that is fundamentally subversive of international order and a source of constant international tension.

That theoretical distinction is now a non-issue anyway because recent pro-Palestinian protests included plainly anti-Semitic elements. Demonstrators chanted slogans that were genocidal towards Israel and supportive of Hamas, which is avowedly hostile to all Jews. Some of them surrounded, threatened, and physically attacked or restrained local Jews who were wearing kippahs or simply “looking Jewish”. Many of their London victims were almost certainly not Israelis—though they may be soon if the police do not take stronger action to enforce the law equally and to protect both Jewish and other non-Muslim citizens against thuggery and intimidation.

This upsurge of anti-Semitism has surprised a great many people—fewer among Jews than among Gentiles, perhaps—who had thought that anti-Semitism was largely a thing of the past in the Western world. And we should notice the evidence of opinion polls is that most citizens of Western countries do not support the demonstrators and do support Israel. It is a vocal minority—even among Muslims—that expresses hatred of Jews or support for genocidal policies. But it is a more substantial bloc of opinion in universities, cultural institutions, the mainstream media, and the political Left.

What explains this spread of a political virus that until a year ago seemed confined to the extremes of political life? Among many reasons I would suggest three:

1/ The gradual weakening of the taboo against anti-Semitism that has protected the political life of Western democracies since we discovered the hideous evil of the Holocaust in 1945.

2/ Global migration flows that have imported into the West large migrant communities, in particular from the Middle East, which have brought their local quarrels with them.

3/ The Six-Day War. Israel’s victory in 1967 and its continuing dominance of the region (together with its capitalist economic success) have made it, in the eyes of the modern progressive Left, a “settler” colony of the West and thus a force on the wrong side of history. And the Western Left—which is coincidentally enjoying a burst of energy in its wokeist revolution—happens to be dominant in the universities, the media, cultural institutions, and anti-racist NGOs. The alliance between Islamists and Western leftist progressives in support of Hamas has triumphed over their incompatibility on almost everything else.

Let us now turn to the international implications of this global reaction to Hamas’s war. For most of our adult lives the modern international order has had three reference points.