Wednesday Potpourri

First, from Jeremy Carl, the upside of the recent discussion about Harvard president Claudine Gay. As you know, the Harvard Corporation Board refused to ask her to resign. Of course, she could still do the right thing and resign, but, what are the odds that a serial plagiarist and anti-Semite would find an honorable out.

Carl finds the bright side of the episode:

Honestly, Harvard keeping its plagiarist, anti-white racist, affirmative-action hire as President is the best of all possible worlds. It means years of future humiliation and discrediting of an institution richly deserving of it.

Second, yesterday the White House celebrated Hanukkah. Family members of several hostages wanted to be present for the event. The Biden White House turned them down.

Chaya Raichik, aka, the LibsofTikTok woman,wrote this:

Wow. The Biden admin refused to allow American hostages’ families to attend the White House Hannukah event.

Late reports tell us that the Biden White House has invited the families for a separate meeting. Apparently, they will use the meeting to explain why they have chosen to attack Israeli wartime leadership.

Third, we are unreliable informed, from the mainstream media, that the Israeli operation in Gaza is causing the Arab world to turn against Israel. It is nonsense, but people believe it anyway. At least the high price of gullibility Tom Friedman seems to believe it.

On several occasions I have pointed out that private sentiments in Arab governments are at variance from such an opinion.

Consider the views of an Iraqi Hussain Abdul-Hussain:

I'm on a dozen WhatsApp groups with friends, family, cousins. I write: Hamas should surrender. A few on each group throw a tantrum at me and accuse me of being a Zionist dog. Then dozens WhatsApp me privately saying they totally agree with my idea that Hamas should surrender, but are too scared to say it to the group. In our Arab world, we have a HUGE problem. We cannot be honest with our own selves. We let the noisy and the charlatans shut us up and speak in whisper only. This is how Saddam's Iraq, where I spent my childhood, looked like. Today, this is how most of the Arab world looks like. Speak up, people. 

Say no to criminal Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran regime and political Islam at large. Demand better lives, for you and your kids. If you don't do it, no body else will. After trying to fix things and burning its fingers in Iraq, America will not fix the Arab world. It's all incumbent on the Arabs to do so. Shed Medieval backwardness and demand liberty and good governance. Free yourselves from Islamist tyranny that's ruling most of Arabs and Muslims, across the globe.

Fourth, regarding the calls for an Israeli cease fire, they are apparently working for Hamas. Lee Kern posts this:

The louder the calls for ceasefire become - the closer Hamas is to defeat All you calling for a ceasefire are cucks & useful idiots who’ve been completely manipulated by Islamic fundamentalist rapists who want to destroy you & the west You are the most stupid people in society

He adds:

Palestinian terrorists are surrendering to the Israeli army precisely BECAUSE they KNOW they will be safe They know they will be treated according to the rule of law They know they will be treated better than Hamas would treat a captured Israeli soldier, who would be tortured and decapitated Palestinian surrender PROVES their faith in the morality of the Israeli army They KNOW that Israel acts with decency, even if idiots and liars on the internet pretend Israel doesn’t

Fifth, more and more Hamas warriors have been surrendering to the IDF. We have all seen pictures of them, reduced to their skivvies, on their knees. Of course, Hamas sympathizers are up in arms about the indignity of it all. It reminds some of them of the pictures of incarcerated criminal gang members in El Salvador. And we can’t have that.

Prof. David Bernstein comments:

People who celebrated pictures of Israeli kids being murdered and women being abused are now VERY VERY upset to see pictures of suspected Hamas adult male terrorists stripped to their skivvies to make sure they aren't concealing weaponry.

Sixth, the blame-it-all-on Israel contingent has a warped sense of history. David Collier explains:

Quick history lesson: Between 1949 and 1967 every cm of the West Bank and Gaza was under full Arab control. Q: Did they declare a Palestinian state? A: No they didn't. But they did create the PLO to destroy Israel. Because that is what this is really all about.

Seventh, one Mohamed Safa tries to appropriate the birth of Christ for the Palestinian cause:

Billions of people around the globe are about to celebrate the birthday of a Palestinian man, born in Bethlehem 2000+ years ago, but don't think Palestinians lived there before 1948.

David Harsanyi sets the record straight:

Jesus was Jewish. The land wasn't called "Palestine" until 100 years after his birth. And the name "Palestine," given to the land by Europeans, derives from the Philistines, who were long gone by then -- though they also originally came from Europe. Otherwise, good tweet!

I hadn’t known that the original Palestinians were Philistines, but I am happy to be better informed.

Eighth, as for the insistence that hating Zionists-- think of Norman Finkelstein-- is not the same as hating Jews, Dr. Eli David offers this clarification:

Saying “I don't hate Jews, I only hate Zionists” is like saying “I don't hate Christians, I only hate those who believe in Jesus”

Now that Finkelstein has been the subject of something of a puff piece in New York Magazine, it is worth recalling, among his greatest hits, he once said:

Zionists are Nazis in black hats and beards. 

If that does not count as anti-Semitism, the term has no meaning.

Ninth, another note on the famous Arab street, and its apparent hatred of Israel. Former ambassador David Friedman writes this:

You gotta love how @nytimes gets the Middle East so wrong. It’s now reporting that Israel’s battle against Hamas is “poisoning” its relationship with the Arab world. It misses entirely the reality that most moderate Sunni governments are secretly rooting for Israel to annihilate Hamas. When Israel wins, it will command even greater respect and restore its ties with these nations.

Tenth, now that the floundering Biden campaign has called on Hillary Clinton to mount a rescue mission, it is worthwhile to consider how well Hillary has been doing as a teacher at Columbia University.

From the College Fix:

Hillary Clinton’s fall class at Columbia University felt more like being in a “late-night talk show” audience than a college course, one of many complaints from underwhelmed students, according to a Huffington Post op-ed published Sunday.

Clinton did not read students’ assignments, attend discussion sessions, or hold office hours, and students complained that their questions about controversial topics were avoided, according to the piece.

Since she has failed at all her previous jobs, we are not surprised.

Eleventh, tell me you are surprised. You know well that when the weird sisters-- aka university presidents-- offered their appalling testimony before a House committee, they were coached.

You may not know that they were coached by lawyers from a firm called Wilmer Hale. The New York Times report tells us who coached them. Unsurprisingly, their coaches were of the female persuasion:

Lawyers for WilmerHale sat in the front row at the hearing on Tuesday. They included Alyssa DaCunha, who leads the firm’s congressional investigations and crisis management practices, and Felicia Ellsworth, the vice chair of the firm’s litigation and controversy department.

Twelfth, you have doubtless heard of the case of Kate Cox, a pregnant Texas woman who wanted to terminate her pregnancy-- on doctor’s orders. The condition of the fetus would have made life impossible. Carrying to term would have damaged her chances to have a  baby,

The Texas attorney general and the Texas Supreme Court turned down the request, for reasons that defy reason. She has traveled to another state to have the procedure performed.

About which Ann Coulter comments on Twitter:

The prolife movement has gone from compassion for the child to cruelty to the mother (and child). Trisomy 18 is not a condition that is compatible with life.

Thirteen, Daniel Greenfield answers the question, one we have often raised: What has feminism become?

Feminism now means demanding that men in dresses should have access to battered women’s shelters. There is talk among feminist scholars about opposing Title IX, the foundation of womens’ sports, because it excludes transgender men. Apart from relentlessly campaigning for abortion, what does the feminist movement even do anymore that’s related to women?

A feminist movement that won’t protect battered women, trafficked girls in Europe or womens’ sports in America is certainly not going to stick its neck out for women assaulted by Hamas.

Why should a movement that lets its own daughters be beaten care about Israeli women?

Fourteenth, from the annals of The Ethicist, a New York Times column, ably run by Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Here is a recent letter. The question is: is it real or is it Memorex?

My mother, who is in her early 70s and was widowed about a year ago, has been struggling to adjust to life without her husband. As her only child, I have also been struggling to find ways to be helpful. Finances have been a particular challenge for her; one concern is the cost of her cable and streaming subscriptions.

Recently, she has added subscriptions for four separate premium pornography channels, adding $160 per month to her already exorbitant cable bill. Although my mother is an avid internet user, she evidently doesn’t understand that there’s ample free pornography available online.

Should I discuss this issue with her? I’m aghast at the amount of money she’s spending unnecessarily on porn, but I’m incredibly uncomfortable with the prospect of having a conversation about it. 

If it was your mother, what would you do?

Please subscribe to my Substack and perhaps even donate to this blog, via Paypal, at the left of this page.