Brendan O’Neill on Hamas and our university leftists
It is time to ask ourselves if our woke elites are not just Hamas’s useful idiots, but its unofficial spindoctors. Not just excuse-makers for Islamist barbarism, but authors of the very justifications the Islamists offer up for their barbarism.
He’s right about the connection, but he’s wrong about the order of things. It’s mostly the other way around: the woke postmodern line on Hamas has come down from Muslim radicals teaching at our universities, and this has been going on for many decades already. But the Palestinians’ message has also come from the left via the Soviets, and before that from the Nazis themselves through the person of al Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem.
These are huge topics, and I’m not going to further explore them in this post. Maybe in the future.
Well I think it’s fair to say that the radical Islamist messaging in our Universities has at least been gussied up with modern faculty lounge language and sophistry. Terms like “decolonization” probably didn’t orginate from some fire breathing Imam. Leftism and radical Islamism have made a sort of unholy alliance of destructive ideas, a synergy of savagery.
Quoting O’Neill:
Quoting BrainlessMoronBiden: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/biden-urges-less-intrusive-action-at-gaza-hospital/
IDF video at Rantisi Hospital showing tunnels, captured munitions and evidence of possible hostage holding: https://youtu.be/e3mQJCqZYaA?si=UPU_XPBvhg_GASeh
from what I glimpsed the muslim student associations were founded at u michigan, and u illinois at urbana champlain, yes about a year after the port huron statement, that birthed the sds, largely composed or urdu speakers, it was aided by the Brotherhood’s Egyptian network, this was a few after Hasan Ramadan, had leaned on Eisenhower to support the campaign against Nasser,
now i’m surmising until the 67 war, they were still largely nationalist, probably even 73, sometime in the middle the Soviet decided to declare Zionism is racism, as they through the likes of General Sakharovsky had Arafat and other parties had Haddad,
I have to agree with Nonapod and I think it’s much more nonlinear and mutually reinforcing than merely Islamist – > Leftist in terms of the ideology and terminology. We can see this because Islamists like Qutb exposed to le olde Western Intelligentsia before often recoiled from it and declared jihad. Ditto the Madhi in Sudan before him.
In contrast I do think it is at least as important to recognize Leftist Anti-Western “Anti-Imperialism” and “Anti-Colonialism” like that by Franz Fanon, which often embraced outright genocide and were decidedly Western or Soviet in origin, and synergized well with the Islamist rise up (in part because their grievances and rhetoric were often dovetailed, such as traditional Islamic casus bellis about supposed oppression).
I certainly can point to many cases where the Jihadis adopted positions or rhetoric that were obviously authorized by leftists. Osama Bin Laden’s supposed favorite American author is a key example of this.
My kids and their friends graduated college about 2000/20001. Never during or afterward did I hear from them anything about this area. Not even nutty professors except for one case, from a buddy of our son.
So it would seem the social and personal issues which caused the current mess are not attractive to normal kids. Not even know any, apparently.
While the Muslim influence seems to have been on the ground for a long time before it surfaced to such an extent, from the outside, it looks as if the woke/hippy/leftist/DEI movement was there awaiting a Cause. Fertile, brainless soil. Where they came from is probably worth some thought so as to not have it happen any longer.
This conflict – the immediate one, I mean, the current effort of Israel to destroy Hamas – seems so cut and dried to me: Israel so clearly holds the moral high ground. Yet everywhere I turn there are people, intelligent people, who are utterly convinced that Israel uses the same tools as Hamas: the propaganda videos, the targeting of civilians, rape, murder, kidnapping, attempted genocide. I have tried to understand it, to understand them, but I just can’t.
There’s one guy, ordinarily someone I tend to agree with about the culture wars and so forth, who – on this subject and on the subject of reparations – appears to have embraced the oppressor/oppressed framing and uses all the usual moral equivalency stuff to try to claim that because “Zionists” “violently displaced” “Palestinians” in 1948, the barbarism of Hamas is at least comprehensible.
I mean, I suppose he’s not wrong that it’s comprehensible. I have a good imagination. But is it forgivable? Or, more importantly, can we live with – make peace with – people who would respond to a grievance like being pushed out of their homes (say for the sake of argument that it happened exactly as that side describes it) with what we saw on Oct. 7 and continue to see in their treatment of their own people?
Yes he is the father of decolonizing of course the company adopted him as a pet.
I was mulling over the undeniable puritanical roots of the Western left. Scoff if you will. God’s elect and all. Nothing is so satisfying to be cock sure in your own self righteous ness.
They are literally insane i understand their reasoning but still it doesnt make sense
Who started the war in 06 in 08 in 12 in 14 in 21, not israel
I have to agree with Nonapod and I think it’s much more nonlinear and mutually reinforcing than merely Islamist – > Leftist in terms of the ideology and terminology. We can see this because Islamists like Qutb exposed to le olde Western Intelligentsia before often recoiled from it and declared jihad.
Turtler:
Yes. Since 9-11 I’ve noticed Muslims using Western postmodern arguments in Western media with utter insincerity. I’m sure they are laughing at us.
neo has mentioned, properly so, Edward Said, a Palestinian-American philosopher who set the framework for much of this discourse.
You, Turtler, correctly point out the Franz Fanon connection. Fanon, not Palestinian in the least, but a mixed-race Caribbean Marxist, philosopher/psychiatrist, was a huge influence on liberal/leftists too.
The 60s/70s radicals were already primed for these messages from the racial politics of that time.
Re: Qutb — Turtler
I can’t resist throwing in a fave Mark Steyn passage from his immortal discourse on the now-cancelled holiday song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
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Well, not quite everyone loved Baby, It’s Cold Outside. A young Egyptian, Sayyid Qutb, studying at what is now Northern Colorado University, heard a recording of the song at a church dance and wrote that was outraged: “The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . .” Qutb went back to Egypt to become a leader in the fanatically anti-secular Muslim Brotherhood. Later hanged for plotting to overthrow the Nasser government, he’s regarded as the godfather of modern jihad.
Feminists love to cultivate sympathetic “allies.” And they’ve got them aplenty in their grim and puritanical loathing of a cheery Christmas song: radical Islamic terrorists.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2017/12/13/defense-baby-its-cold-outside/947886001/
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When Steyn is on, he’s on!
Nonapod; Turtler; huxley:
Terms like “decolonization” applied to Palestine were the result of an anti-Israel propaganda war started many decades ago by the Soviets and purposely spread by the Soviets to the Middle East and to universities in the West in order to turn the western world against Israel. I hope to discuss this in greater depth in the future.
That narrative really doesnt make sense, colonial egypt was not that uptight.
Nonapod; Turtler; huxley:
If you want some of the background, please see this. An excerpt [emphasis mine]:
They taught the Palestinians to speak that language, the language of the left, in order to draw the left in on the Palestinian side. And it happened along time ago – starting in the 1960s.
When did Jew-hatred begin?
Gen 34: 7, ‘The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing must not be done.’
Gen 34:20, ‘Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, “These men are at peace with us; let them dwell in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters.’
Gen 34:24-25, ‘And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city. On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males.’
Gen 34:30-31, ‘Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.” But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?’
Could it be that Jew-hatred goes all the way back to the 12 sons of Jacob, because their moral code and unwillingness to compromise offended their neighbors?
Nonapod; Turtler; huxley:
See also this about the testimony of the former chief of Romanian intelligence (he defected) on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:
This has the ring of truth to me, at least most of it. Did you ever wonder how Arafat suddenly developed all those skills and ways to appeal to the leftist west?
neo:
I’ve not done the research, as you have (thanks!), and I don’t disagree but …
Back in the 80s I was an activist in the Nuclear Freeze movement. I knew why I was there and why my friends were there. We were scared to death that the 80s cold war tensions could lead to nuclear war and that would be a Bad Thing. We weren’t wrong, though arguably our approach might have been.
Later I ran into the conservative argument that we were all Soviet dupes because the Soviets were indeed backing the Nuclear Freeze movement.
I don’t doubt that the Soviets were backing the Freeze. It was in their interest to do so. But I still say we weren’t Soviet dupes. One didn’t have to a communist or a dupe in those days to worry about nuclear war and choose to work to reduce that threat.
Jamie:
The viewpoints of people such as your friend do seem hard to fathom. But the way I look at it is that he probably formed his opinion of Hamas a long time ago, as victims, and now that they’ve so clearly become horrific he cannot make the mental switch and understand how wrong he’s been. So instead, he defends the indefensible.
huxley
I recall the freeze movement. We were supposed to freeze. The Sovs would then be more peaceful. So, instead of fearing massive retaliation they would…..shoot. Seemed kind of counterintuitive to me.
I was worried. But the point was to make it less likely, which meant making the Sovs even more reluctant to shoot first.
Not like how the Japanese’ fierce resistance combined with their lack of nukes kept us from using them.
If you weren’t a communist or a dupe, what was your reasoning?
huxley:
You were indeed useful idiots, I’m afraid.
My Communist uncle was a big muck-a-muck in that movement. If he’s any indication – and I believe he is – it was a Soviet propaganda tool.
I think just about everyone wanted the nuclear problem to get better. I certainly did and still do. But it never seemed as though those proposals were realistic. Unfortunately, I don’t know what would be.
So I don’t doubt your motives were good. Maybe my uncle’s were even good. I don’t pretend to really understand what made him tick. I understand what did back in the 1920s, but he never changed right up to the late 1980s. He died about 2 years before the USSR fell.
Back in the Sixties, Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, came to Michigan State University. He was trying to get us all upset about the extra cost we had to pay for ketchup being blessed as kosher or something.
There was no anti-semitism. People walked around wearing yellow stars, including most of the people attending the talk.
So, in sixty years, not only did we grow a massive class of west-hating idiots, but we grew a huge wave of Jew-hate. Separate issues. But got together in some kind of synergy.
An odd bit of publishing trivia.
After 9/11, much was written about Sayyid Qutb, the father of modern Islamic fundamentalism. “Milestones” was probably his most famous book and was used by Al-Qaeda terrorists in a way that made me think of the Red Guards and Mao’s little red book.
The oldest mosque in the US is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1981, they published and distributed the first English translation of “Milestones.” For many years, this mosque was the sole English publisher.
It’s odd to think that places like Greeley, Colorado and Cedar Rapids, Iowa played such important roles in the development of modern Islamic fanaticism.
We were supposed to freeze. The Sovs would then be more peaceful. So, instead of fearing massive retaliation they would…..shoot. Seemed kind of counterintuitive to me.
…
If you weren’t a communist or a dupe, what was your reasoning?
Richard Aubrey:
By both sides freezing the production of new nuclear weapons, we could reduce the severity of a nuclear war, worst case, and then start to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapon, hopefully to zero.
The Freeze, as I recall, was bilateral. Your version, as I recall, was the conservative distortion.
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In the face of such insanity, people took to the streets in unprecedented numbers and organized politically to demand a halt to the arms race. Many rallied to the proposal developed by security analyst Randall Forsberg, then a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for a mutual, verifiable freeze on the production, testing, and deployment of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union. The resulting movement for a bilateral nuclear freeze sparked one of the largest waves of popular protest in U.S. history.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-09/features/freeze-grassroots-movement-halt-arms-race-end-cold-war
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If you have better cites, let ’em rip!
You were indeed useful idiots, I’m afraid.
My Communist uncle was a big muck-a-muck in that movement. If he’s any indication – and I believe he is – it was a Soviet propaganda tool.
neo;
So if the Soviets made a big deal about Jim Crow in the US, the entire Civil Rights Movement were just Soviet dupes, useful idiots — to be despised and dismissed.
That’s my point.
huxley.
Presume the Sovs didn’t freeze. We still had to, right? Not a distortion. Or maybe you could find a declaration that the Sovs had to go first and be subject to inspection and we could break out if they did?
I was watching the whole thing at the time.
I used to say, if the lion can lie down with the lamb and everything goes fine, there’s no problem with me being the lion, right? Right? Guys, it’s right, right?
Presume the Sovs didn’t freeze. We still had to, right? Not a distortion. Or maybe you could find a declaration that the Sovs had to go first and be subject to inspection and we could break out if they did?
Richard Aubrey:
That’s not what I recall.
How about you doing your own legwork?
ISTM that the intensity of your commitment to a cause doesn’t have a lot to do with whether you’re being used by someone else.
WRT the nuclear freeze, for instance – it would have been a whole lot easier to verify the US side of a freeze than the Soviet side, so even if the stated intent was a bilateral freeze, isn’t it possible that the Soviets would have figured that they could get away with not honoring it? They already knew they had the West fooled as regards their economy and military readiness.
I was not involved in activism at the time, but I was living in the UK as a high school junior and senior, at an RAF base that (IIRC) was supposed to have some involvement in missile launch in the event of a war. And the UNIlateral freeze movement was HUGE in at least that part of the UK at the time – I saw signs, graffiti, protests, everywhere I went from Harwich to London. There was no doubt of the commitment of the protesters, or even probably their understanding that a bilateral freeze would be preferable, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t awfully useful to the Soviets (and rolling to accept a unilateral freeze if that’s all they could get).
The Soviets played the race card hard against the US.
Did that mean the Civil Rights Movement was wrong?
The key problem with the Nuclear Freeze was it badly underestimated the Marxist-Leninist mindset and Eastern Bloc views on WMD. Part of it was legitimately ignorance and naivety (and often times it was from forgetfulness or classified info on both side? And other times it was duplicity. And it can be hard to tell the difference. For instance, was Reagan uninformed when he said that Soviet and American soldiers had never fought each other (in spite of there being several such clashes in 1918-1921, and more like between Allied Sabres and Soviet piloted MiGs on MiG Alley)? Or was he peddling a diplomatically expedient feel good lie? I am inclined to believe the latter, since even if Reagan did not know all of the cases where we fought the Soviets in combat I find it hard to believe he knew about none of them.
But the fact of the matter is that so much of the public, and especially the Left’s useful idiots and would be fifth columnists but not just them – told themselves “The Russians love their children too.”
The problem is that once you reach a certain rank of the Soviet leadership, you’re not really dealing with a member of “The Russians” anymore, but with the kind of trans-or-post-national professional revolutionary Lenin espoused as the vanguard and painstakingly built the Bolsheviks around, or at a minimum people who had inherited their mantles later in the lifetime of the Soviet Experiment and felt compelled to act like them to greater or lesser degrees to retain power. That was the key disconnect and it was absolutely dangerous, considering Lenin fervently tried to start WWII in 1918 literally right after WWI and following getting power with the mantra “Peace, Land, Bread.”
This is also underlined by how the Soviets pushed anti-nuclear propaganda and arms control while fervently building up their arsenals of WMD and – I’d argue all the more tellingly – continuing to expand and deepen their Civil Defense organizations and infrastructure while in the West we mostly began giving them up in the 1950s and 1960s under the premise we were probably all going to die if it went nuclear, which was also pushed fervently by some avenues by the Reds in addition to being a genuine fear.
What we did not know is that the Soviets and other Communist bloc leaders like Mao looked at WMD – or at least ideologically were Supposed to look at it – like just another weapon system, to be deployed when the situation was deemed to warrant it according to the calculations. Nothing more and nothing less. And the calculations perceiving Western aerial superiority and competitiveness in rocketry and WMD emphasized: trying to decrease the West’s WMD capabilities in the leadup to the World War that Soviet leadership always was supposed to be planning and preparing for.
This is the big issue. The idea of nuclear disarmament in the West and much of the public was viewed as a step towards peaceful kumbaya or a deescalation of tensions, and Understandably so. But to the true believers in The Cause (TM confiscated by the Peoples’ Revolutionary Soviet) it was battlefield preparation for the great glorious Revolutionary Struggle that would break out like Lenin desired. Another 1919 conventional war, serving a similar and indeed compatible role with things like technological and platform development such as building new “Boomers”. This is also why the Soviets were prepared to accept WMD restrictions and limited disarmament on Their side. Ideally they would have preferred a unilateral freeze, and certainly wanted to cheat on the margins of the treaty limitations (as we know they did), but ultimately so long as WMD capabilities for both deterrence and first strike (preferably in a limited strategic/military use to complement a conventional war) were maintained that was a sacrifice they were willing to make in order to fulfill Ulyanov’s Dream.
I think this is also what sets the Nuclear Freeze aside from things like the Civil Rights Movement (which admittedly had plenty of fifth columnists or dupes in it), because Soviet interest in the Civil Rights Movement and anti-Apartheid measures and so on were ultimately for propaganda and diplomatic/political maneuvering during peacetime, and touched on issues Kennan and others admitted were unjust and needed addressing, and could be addressed without greatly crippling our survivability. Nuclear Freeze on the other hand was among the Communist true believers always and primarily about obtaining concrete military advantage in a WW3 they planned to launch, and touched on issues the West could not abandon without greatly endangering its security (and as we now know inviting a Third World War).
Of course that was what the doctrine was supposed to believe, and we know the fear of nuclear war affected even the upper echelons of the Soviet leadership. Most obviously I think in the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the Castros were willing and even eager to turn this into a nuclear war in spite of the knowledge Cuba would be hit in response and likely turned into mostly irradiated slag, and were willing to do an end run around Khrushchev and Soviet custody of the nukes, but Khrushchev didn’t. And so when he faced Western leadership under Kennedy (even though Kennedy was someone he had comprehensively beaten and out-stared before) and the fear of Castroite insubordination Khrushchev felt he had to de escalate immediately. Why? Was it fear of nuclear war at all? Dear that his side was not ready in nuclear armaments yet and so would lose? Corruption and lack of belief? Love of life and its commodities? Some mixture of the above?
In any case we are incredibly lucky Stalin died when he did, and that his successors like Molotov lost out in the power struggle, and for one reason or another the Soviets seemed to have gradually shifted towards the idea of revolution from within and being there when the West was buried (to use a more accurate rendering of Khruschev’s famous shoe stomp) than 1918 2.0.
The key problem with the Nuclear Freeze was it badly underestimated the Marxist-Leninist mindset and Eastern Bloc views on WMD
Turtler:
Perhaps. Even likely.
However, as a human being at that juncture of history in the early 80s. what was one supposed to do?
I chose foolishly to stand athwart history, yelling Stop…
Oh wait, someone else said that:
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A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.
–William F. Buckley
I don’t think there was a good, moral, pragmatic solution to nuclear war in the 1980s.
We were damned lucky we didn’t roll snake-eyes back then.
Reagan IMO was right to just face the bastids down.
But if it had led to an all-out nuclear war and hundreds of millions, billions, had died — would you have, honestly, thought it was worth it?
huxley:
Ending Jim Crow was a domestic issue and a relatively easily achievable one. It had little to nothing to do with the Soviets. What they thought about it was irrelevant.
Nuclear freeze was entirely different- an international issue, depending on the trust of the Soviets, and not easily achievable. The Soviet opinion, attitude, and execution was of the utmost importance.
And by the way, I very much doubt that the Soviets actually gave a rat’s ass about Jim Crow or any sort of human rights in the US or elsewhere. All was propaganda.
The Bee hits it out of the park again. RTWT for an exquisite satire.
https://babylonbee.com/news/cain-calls-for-ceasefire-after-killing-abel
Ending Jim Crow was a domestic issue and a relatively easily achievable one. It had little to nothing to do with the Soviets. What they thought about it was irrelevant.
neo:
That’s not how I recall it. I’ll get back.
I am not at all saying that the Soviets gave a “rat’s ass” about Jim Crow or civil rights. You seem to misunderstand me about my “Jim Crow” shorthand.
Are you really claiming that the Soviets didn’t use racial issues to attack the United States?
Far too close to the truth for comfort.
https://babylonbee.com/news/80-years-after-hitler-failed-nazis-finally-seize-london
Nuclear freeze was entirely different- an international issue, depending on the trust of the Soviets, and not easily achievable. The Soviet opinion, attitude, and execution was of the utmost importance.
neo:
What’s your point?
Mine was that the aim of the Nuclear Freeze was a bilateral freeze. That was the initial condition.
Related (Arizona!)…
‘U of A Profs: Hamas Not Terrorists, Just An Anti-Zionist “Resistance” Group”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uofa-profs-hamas-not-terrorists-just-anti-zionist-resistance-group
+ Bonus:
The Unbearable Insidiousness of Being [“Biden”]…
“Biden Admin Thinks Israel Seeking Pretext For Wider War In Lebanon…”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-admin-thinks-israel-seeking-pretext-wider-war-lebanon
Opening graf:
Some top level members of the Biden administration have warned that Israel could be seeking to provoke a broader war with Hezbollah with an aim toward drawing the United States into a deeper conflict with Iran and its proxies. [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
Classic! (But why on earth would Israel want to fight “Iran and its proxies”?? Hmmm. Must be those rascally ZIO imperialists…)
In any event, I guess we now know—WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY—why Hezbullah has been attacking Israel(!)….
(Even stranger, we now know why Israel has been fighting back!!…)
And a bit of a corrective to the concerns expressed by those saucy Bidenescas…
“IDF intelligence director: ‘We failed in our primary objective’;
“General Aharon Haliva, director of IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, wrote an open letter to his department for the 39th day of the war.”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380289
Huxley
I lived through that era. I had been in Air Defense for a year, so I knew a good bit of the business. I’d done civil rights stuff in Mississippi, and, in one way or another, was on some mailing lists who thought I believed them.
The “freeze” response to possibilities of Soviet cheating never included arming ourselves to an extent that would intimidate the Soviets.
Was there a “Butter Battle” book by Seuss? Made fun of the stand off. SERIOUS stuff for the kids about the silly USA. At the end, nobody got hurt. Seemed like a happy ending to me. But I was never a Deep Thinker.
“…saucy Bidenescas…”, continued…
“The Biden Administration Loses Its Stomach for Israel’s Self-Defense”—
https://archive.li/GiXX4#selection-587.0-587.68
H/T Blazingcatfu blof.
Key graf:
“…It was predictable (and, indeed, predicted) that media and the Democratic officials sensitive to the press’s verdicts would collapse into an emotional puddle when Israel set its sights on the critical command post that Hamas situated beneath the Shifa Hospital….”
Oh, I think that support was eroding way before that (thanks not so much to “Democratic officials sensitive to the press’s verdicts” as to “Democratic officials that are actually pro-Hamas”, if perhaps “sensitively” so)…BUT that hospital sure is “convenient” (as it was always intended to be—and as was the initial hospital that “Israel callously, criminally bombed”, causing all those “casualties”…yep, the ‘”bombing” that went ’round the world’…).
Heh….
“MEMO TO THE AP”—
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/11/memo-to-the-ap.php
(AKA, “When is a war crime NOT a war crime?”…and/or “When is NOT a war crime a war crime?”…)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/china-joins-condemnations-of-israeli-ministers-statement-about-nuking-gaza/
Some nuclear deterrent, eh? The IRGC and its mullah bosses sure seem to be quivering under their turbans, don’t they!?
It seems to me that when your political movement develops a raging case of anti-semitism, that is a pretty good indicator that your political movement was already rotten to its core.
It also seems to me that the nuclear disarmament movement is another example of the left’s oldest play – exploit the idealism of the young to acheive political or military objectives that aren’t otherwise acheivable. I believe that Huxley and many others sincerely desired disarmament on both sides, but I doubt that would have happened. Either the Soviets would have cheated, or they believed that reducing or eliminating nukes put them in a better strategic position.
I think that’s the same play now with Hamas and the university kids. The whole thing is driven by lies of omission about Hamas’s use of human shields and the extraordinary, but ultimately doomed, efforts of the Israelis to avoid civilian casualities. It looks like the movement is being driven (and funded) by anti-semites, but I suspect that there are many idealistic and wildly uninformed kids as well.
Richard Aubrey – I have some experience with universities around 2000/2001. The explicitly Arab influence may not have been what it is now, but the anti-Isreal movement was certainly there, and not insignificant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNC3OciAF3w
MIT President issues a stunning and brave message.
Related…
(Powerline blog on a roll…)
“Framing Israel;
“How the media are reporting the war against the Jews and the west”—
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/framing-israel
Containing all kinds of Gaza hospital background….
(In fact, it’s an old Hamas tradition to convert Gaza hospitals into “All-Purpose Spaces”…)
“Biden Mulls Approval of Fresh $10 Billion for Iran;
“Sanctions waiver frees up money for Tehran as it funds Hamas’s war on Israel”—
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/biden-mulls-approval-of-fresh-10-billion-payment-to-iran/
(…In case anyone WAS wondering what the Muller-in-Chief decided to do with that 6 Billion that “he” so judiciously canceled a month or so ago….)
so the confrontation, ideological military economic is roughly parallel, to the Israeli/Arab dispute, Reagan saw through their moral equivalence, perhaps noting what Whittaker Chambers noted about Stalin being the greatest czar,
China which helped spring board the Pakistani nuclear program, with the Lahuta reactor, well they are just doing stand up now,
huxley:
I was addressing your comment:
Also this comment of yours:
My point is that the Soviet opinion and intentions mattered when evaluating the meaning and worth of the nuclear freeze issue as well as the possible outcome of doing what the Soviets were advocating in that regard, whereas in the other case – civil rights; Jim Crow – their opinion did not matter when evaluating the meaning and worth of the issue (we can also assume they couldn’t have cared less about the actual issue of civil rights or the condition of black people in the US; the Soviet position on this was just a way to criticize the US and gain supporters in the civil rights movement). They were not a party to the latter issue; they were the other party to the first issue.
See also this, as a note of historical interest regarding Obama.
Colleges have been illegally discriminating against hiring Republican professors for years, for decades. Well known illegal behavior – extremely difficult to prove in any criminal trial for any case.
Requiring at least 30% Republican professors in order for any edu org to gain tax exempt status would change that dynamic (and also at least 30% Dem). The burden of proof changes, a la Oppenheimer, so the college has to prove it doesn’t discriminate.
@ Tom Grey – a nice idea, but we will simply get professors who are as Republican as all the token “conservatives” writing for the MSM and brought in as experts on MSNBC etc.