RIP Joe Lieberman

The New Neo Posted on by

Joe Lieberman was 82 years old:

Joe Lieberman, a longtime senator from Connecticut who became the first Jewish American to be nominated on a major party’s ticket, died Wednesday. He was 82.

Lieberman’s family stated that he died “due to complications from a fall. He was 82 years old. His beloved wife, Hadassah, and members of his family were with him as he passed.”

Halfway through his 24-year Senate career, Lieberman was chosen as Al Gore’s running mate for the 2000 presidential election. The ticket lost one of the closest elections in American history.

Lieberman was an old-fashioned Democrat and not a leftist. Not long after his vice-presidential run, he was effectively drummed out of the party and he ran (and won) the race for senator in 2006 as an Independent.

Not only was Lieberman Jewish, he was an Orthodox Jew. He praised Trump for moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and he recently attacked Schumer:

Earlier this month, he wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal attacking Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for saying that Israel needed to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as its leader.

“While Mr. Schumer’s statement undoubtedly pleased American critics of Israel,” he wrote, “for the Israelis it was meaningless, gratuitous and offensive.”

RIP.

Roundup!

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Mexico’s president has shared his point of view on drug cartels:

Over the years, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has laid out various justifications for his “hugs, not bullets” policy of avoiding clashes with the cartels. In the past he has said “you cannot fight violence with violence,” and on other occasions he has argued the government has to address “the causes” of drug cartel violence, ascribing them to poverty or a lack of opportunities.

Actually, history is replete with examples of successfully fighting violence with violence.

More recently:

But on Friday, while discussing his refusal to go after the cartels, he made it clear he viewed it as part of what he called a “Mexico First” policy.

“We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government,” López Obrador said at his daily news briefing. “Mexico First. Our home comes first.”

One would think that even a “Mexico First” policy would encourage going after the cartels. But one would think wrong.

(2) RFK Jr. has chosen a leftist running mate, 38-year-old Nicole Shanahan. Mainstream Democrats seen to think this will hurt Biden’s chances of re-election. I sure hope so. Kennedy doesn’t have a chance to win; he’s just a spoiler. I hope he spoils Biden more than Trump, and this VP pick might help that happen.

(3) The IDF has confirmed that Marwan Issa was killed in an airstrike eleven days ago. He was third in command of Hamas. I’m not sure how these confirmations work, but I would assume that DNA is involved.

(4) Disney settles with DeSantis and Florida. I call that a win for DeSantis.

(5) Anti-Semitism and education are correlated.

Positively, not negatively:

Anti-Semitism has long been thought to be primarily a function of ignorance. Events since October 7, however, have disabused us of that view, as America’s most prestigious educational institutions have become the centers of virulent anti-Semitism. …

… a study by professors Jay P. Greene, Albert Cheng, and Ian Kingsbury, found that the more education a person has, the more anti-Semitic he is likely to be.

Though earlier studies had suggested a correlation between low education levels and anti-Semitism, Greene et al suspected that those with higher education were too sophisticated to give “wrong” answers when asked straight up how they felt about Jews or whether they agreed with blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes. So instead, the researchers used a test based on double standards by asking about comparable cases involving a Jewish example and a non-Jewish example. And they found that “more highly educated people were more likely to apply principles more harshly to Jewish examples.”

In the test, no subject was asked both about the Jewish case and the non-Jewish case to prevent them from discerning the nature of the test. When asked, for instance, whether “attachment to a foreign country creates a conflict of interest,” respondents with four-year degrees were 7 percent more likely, and those with advanced degrees 13 percent more likely, to express concern when the country was Israel than when it was Mexico. Those with advanced degrees were 12 percent more likely to support the military in prohibiting Jewish yarmulkes than in prohibiting Sikh turbans. While a majority of respondents supported a ban on public gatherings during Covid, those with advanced degrees were 11 percent more likely to do so with respect to Orthodox funerals than BLM protests.

(6) The Francis Scott Key bridge was especially vulnerable because of where it was built, and this was known:

“Classical education” making a small comeback

The New Neo Posted on by

This trend is of interest:

The future of the controversial classical education movement will be showcased later this month [it already has occurred] when Columbia University senior lecturer Roosevelt Montás is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at a national symposium hosted by Great Hearts, the biggest classical charter network.

The views of Montás, author of the widely praised memoir “Rescuing Socrates,” are well to the left of many in the classical charter movement, which is rooted in Christian conservatism. What makes Montás’ upcoming speech so notable, then, is the signal it sends about the movement’s effort to diversify its brand and project a welcoming attitude as it seeks to expand beyond conservative strongholds and suburbs where it began.

But not everyone is enamored of the effort, neither educational conservatives nor local school officials, unions, and progressive advocates. The latter liken classical charters to a Trojan Horse, sneaking quasi-Christian right-wing dogma into public education under the cover of liberal arts. …

In all, there are about 250 classical charters today, according to one study, making them a small niche within the broader charter sector of 8,000 schools and campuses …

By making common cause with a range of prominent black and Latino thinkers and educators like Montás, classical charter leaders hope to show that their style of moral education is valuable to students from all backgrounds and beliefs.

There is no reason a classical education would have to be tied to belief in a specific religion. As some in the movement have said:

“We base ourselves in the West, in the culture of freedom that produced the Magna Carta, the founding documents of this country, and the civil rights movement,” said Dan Scoggin, co-founder of Great Hearts and a Claremont alum. “We read Marx, Rousseau – writers who push back on the Christian tradition, but it’s also a big part of Western culture. To those who try to pigeonhole classical charters as pseudo-Christian, no, we are not.”

Here’s a website to promote classical education with a broader outreach.

I wish them luck. Education has been so destructive in recent years, and the rot so pervasive, that it’s hard to come up with something that could reverse it. Any movement that would do so would have to be able to appeal to a broad swath of people, and academic rigor can be a very tough sell.

NOTE: See also this.

Hamas rejects proposed deal for the Israeli hostages

The New Neo Posted on by

We still know next to nothing about the current state of the remaining Israeli hostages Hamas and other Gazans took on October 7. That’s about five and a half months ago. It’s pretty much a certainty that many are dead, but how many? I believe many are alive, being kept that way because of their great value. Hamas doesn’t value them as human beings but rather as pawns of great price, to be exchanged for prisoners – including many murderers – held in Israel.

Hamas is well aware of the precedent of prisoner releases by Israel in order to get hostages back. The most notorious one involved a single hostage, Galid Shalit, who was returned in an exceedingly lopsided deal:

[The Shalit deal was] a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners — almost all Palestinians and Arab-Israelis … Two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets.

Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released under the deal were collectively responsible for the killing of 569 Israelis. The agreement came five years and four months after Palestinian militants captured Shalit in southern Israel along the Gaza Strip border.

It was a costly deal then, and turned out to be even more costly in terms of the future, because many of those released – including Sinwar – were involved in the planning and execution of the October 7 massacre. How could it have been otherwise? What were the Israeli authorities thinking when they negotiated that deal? Part of the reason they did it was intense political and emotional pressure from many Israelis. And note how long the negotiations took – over five years between Shalit’s capture and his release.

More:

While in captivity, Hamas refused to allow the International Red Cross access to Shalit, and the only indications that he was still alive were an audio tape, a video recording, and three letters.

The International Red Cross has had no access to the current hostages, nor is the organization even asking for it, as far as I know. And Shalit’s family got more evidence of life than the current hostage families are receiving. Hamas thinks it is holding a very very strong hand, and that strength also involves the neutrality or even the approval of much of the international community. The only pressure Hamas faces is military pressure from Israel, and the UN and most countries on earth – including the US under the Biden administration – are determined to get Israel to relax that pressure.

Yesterday’s UN Security Council resolution – from which the Biden administration abstained – demanded a ceasefire and hostage release, but did not make the first demand contingent on the second and was therefore worse than useless. Hamas believes it can get its ceasefire and continue to hold the hostages.

So why negotiate? And predictably, yesterday Hamas rejected a hostage deal that seems to me to have been unconscionably favorable to the terror group:

Hamas informed the mediators on the hostage deal that it would maintain its original position regarding a ceasefire, Reuters reported on Monday. This includes the withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip, returning Palestinians to their homes, and exchanging prisoners.

Hamas’s response comes after Israel agreed on Saturday to a compromise proposed by the US regarding the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and was waiting for the terror group’s response.

According to Israeli media on Sunday, citing Israeli officials, Israel reportedly agreed to release some 700-800 Palestinian prisoners in return for 40 hostages.

The Palestinian prisoners in the recent exchange proposal are reported to have included many murderers, just as with the Shalit exchange. And of course, 40 hostages are only about a third of those Hamas holds (dead or alive). The hostages are money in the back for Hamas, and their worth increases over time, with interest. Why should they acquiesce before all their demands are met?

Netanyahu responded today [emphasis mine]:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released on Tuesday, “Hamas’s position clearly proves that Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations for a deal and is an unfortunate testimony to the damage created by the Security Council’s decision.

“Hamas once again rejected any American compromise proposal and repeated its extreme demands: an immediate end to the war, a complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip, and the remaining in power so that it could repeat the massacre of October 7 again and again, as it had promised to do,” the statement continued.

I have to say it is also “unfortunate testimony to the damage created by” the Shalit exchange and other such prisoner exchanges. Netanyahu was Prime Minister of Israel when the negotiations were concluded, although he didn’t hold that position when they began. Ehud Olmert did.:

Unofficial talks between Israel and Hamas [on Shalit] began on 1 July 2006, six days after the abduction of Shalit, mediated by Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist, co-director of the Israeli-Palestinian think tank IPCRI—the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information. On that day, Baskin arranged a telephone conversation between Hamas Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad and Noam Shalit, the father of the soldier. …

On 9 September 2006, Baskin arranged for a hand written letter from Shalit to be delivered to the Representative Office of Egypt in Gaza, the first sign of life from Shalit and the proof of an actual channel of communication had been established. … In the end of December 2006 the Egyptians presented the agreed formula for a prisoner exchange in which Israel would release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit in two phases. This was the same agreement reached five years later.

After Olmert resigned from office on corruption charges and following elections in Israel which brought Netanyahu to power, Deckel was replaced by former Mossad agent Hagai Hadas who worked primarily though the good offices of a German Intelligence Officer, Gerhard Conrad. Hadas resigned in failure in April 2011 and was replaced by Mossad Officer David Meidan. Meidan took over on 18 April 2011, he was contacted by Gershon Baskin the very same day. The secret back channel run by Baskin and Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad was authorized by Netanyahu in May 2011.

Netanyahu responded to a pilgrimage march, called by Shalit’s father for his release, by saying he was willing to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, but that top Hamas leaders would not be among those released. Shalit’s father had previously blamed the US for blocking talks on his son’s release.

The Baskin–Hamad secret back channel produced a document of principles for the release on 14 July 2011 which was authorized by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ahmad Jabri. In August 2011, Egyptian-moderated negotiations on determining the list of names of the prisoners to be released began with Hamas represented by Ahmed Jabari and three other Hamas officials and Israel represented by David Meidan and two other Israeli officials. Haaretz reported that Israel proposed a prisoner swap, and threatened that if Hamas rejected the proposal, no swap would occur. Hamas responded by warning that an end to negotiations would lead to Shalit’s “disappearance”. Negotiations were hung up over disagreements between the two parties regarding Israel’s unwillingness to release all of the so-called “senior prisoners” into the West Bank—a demand Hamas rejected—and regarding the particulars of releasing prisoners who were leaders of Hamas and other organizations.

Netanyahu seems to have caved to the pressure, because in the end 280 of the prisoners released were serving life sentences for being involved in lethal terrorist attacks on Israelis. The decision was put to a vote by the Cabinet. Twenty-six members voted to approve it, while three opposed it:

[The three in opposition were] Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon, and Minister of National Infrastructure Uzi Landau. Ya’alon (Likud) argued that the prisoners would “go back to terrorism” and that they would destabilize the security situation in the West Bank. Landau (Yisrael Beiteinu) warned that the deal would be “a huge victory for terror” and that it would encourage more abductions of Israelis.

Well, they get to say “I told you so,” although I imagine that’s scant comfort. And if Netanyahu was going to approve the recent deal, it sounds as though little has been learned on this score since 2011 – except by Hamas.

At the time, there was a great deal of disagreement over the deal. One of the players, Dan Schueftan, whom I’ve seen and heard making statements opposing any present-day deal, called the Shalit swap deal at the time “the greatest significant victory for terrorism that Israel has made possible since its establishment.” He gets to say “I told you so” as well.

And then there’s Daniel Bar-Tal, professor of political psychology at Tel Aviv University. At the time of the Shalit deal he said this:

Here we see the basic dilemmas between the individual and the collective, and we see victim pitted against victim. Gilad Shalit is a victim who was violently kidnapped, in a way that Israelis do not consider to be a normative means of struggle. Therefore, one side says, he should be returned at any price. But the families of those killed in terrorist attacks and the people who were wounded in those attacks are victims, too, and they say that no price should be paid to the murderers. And it is truly a dilemma, because no side is right, and no side is wrong.

I beg to differ, at least somewhat. I see it as a disagreement about the “collective” itself and what the result will be of its actions, including results for individuals. It seems to me to be inevitable and inarguable that releasing so many violent terrorists to return one hostage will guarantee more hostages – individuals – of the same sort and in the same predicament. Therefore it pits one present innocent victim against future innocent victims who will be victimized as a result of the release. That hurts more individuals – although not this particular individual, Shalit – and it also harms the collective as a whole. It seems to mean that one side is right – although rational and cold-blooded – and one is wrong.

I am very glad that I’m not in charge of any such negotiations, however. And I’m extra-glad not to know anyone taken hostage, and might even be found among the “release them at any price!” contingent if I did. But governments must resist such demands if that sort of desire to free the innocent conflicts so strongly with the need to avoid rewarding the hostage-takers and emboldening them to continue in their vicious path.

Baltimore bridge collapses after being struck by cargo ship

The New Neo Posted on by

This is a shock:

The Francis Scott Key Bridge along I-695 in Maryland collapsed into the Baltimore harbor following a “ship strike” early Tuesday morning, setting off a search and rescue mission for those who plunged into the chilly waters.

A livestream of the bridge at about 1:30 a.m. showed a cargo ship colliding with a support beam, causing the bridge to break apart and fall into the Patapsco River. Multiple vehicles were on the bridge at the time, but no update on casualties has been offered.

Eight members of a construction crew that was doing routine work filling potholes on the bridge fell into the water, Paul Wiedefeld, secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, told reporters. Six of these members were unaccounted for, while two were rescued. One of the rescued members was in the hospital, while the other refused treatment.

When asked about how many vehicles went into the water and the condition of those people that were in the vehicles, Weidefeld said no information was available at this time.

If this had happened in the daytime, I’m fairly certain the toll would have been much greater.

I know next to nothing about bridge design or the navigation of cargo ships. But when I heard this news, I wondered whether there’s a way to make bridges less vulnerable to a single strike such as this one. Here’s a relevant article:

The bridge did not appear to have pier protection to withstand the cargo ship crash, according to a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Professor Roberto Leon, of Virginia Tech, said he reviewed the video of the crash Tuesday.

“If a bridge pier without adequate protection is hit by a ship of this size, there is very little that the bridge could do,” Leon said.

Maryland recently retrofitted another bridge with pier protection devices for about $100 million, he said.

It’s expensive, but the price would pale in comparison with expected losses from the damaged bridge, including additional miles driven, fuel and business costs, he said.

Yes, but this sort of event is highly unusual, isn’t it? And since no one could predict which bridge would be hit, the protection retrofitting would have to be done for every bridge. It still might be worth it, though – and my guess is that the ultimate cost of last night’s collapse could definitely include lawsuits by families of the dead and injured.

The cargo ship is reported to have lost power before hitting the bridge. Of course, a ship can’t stop on a dime even with no power; it will keep going for quite some time.

The ship’s crew issued a mayday call moments before the crash took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge, enabling authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span, Maryland’s governor said.

It appears to have been an accident, but I’ve seen plenty of chatter online speculating otherwise. I subcribe to the accident explanation.

Recycling research in DEI – andMad magazine

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s another case alleging research misconduct by a DEI academician:

The chief diversity officer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, LaVar Charleston, who also teaches at the university’s school of education, has a decades-long track record of research misconduct, according to a complaint filed with the university on Wednesday and a Washington Free Beacon analysis. That misconduct includes presenting old studies as new research, which he has done at least five times over the course of his career.

The complaint, which was filed anonymously, implicates eight of Charleston’s publications, many of them coauthored, and accuses him of plagiarizing other scholars as well as duplicating his own work. It comes as the university is already investigating Charleston over a separate complaint filed in January, alleging that a 2014 study by him and his wife—Harvard University’s chief diversity officer, Sherri Ann Charleston—is a facsimile of a study he published in 2012. …

Charleston also appears to have recycled findings and interview responses from his 2010 dissertation, which involved a survey of black computer science students, in four subsequent papers: the 2012 and 2014 studies that were the subject of the previous complaint, as well as two additional studies published in 2016 and 2022.

Each study is framed as a novel survey addressing a gap in the scholarly literature. None cite Charleston’s dissertation or indicate that they are drawing on previously published material.

Plagiarism-detection software has been around since the early years of the 21st century. But I don’t know if and when its use became commonplace in evaluating academic hires or new research by established professors. I also don’t know whether these programs would catch what Charleston is alleged to have done, which is a kind of self-plagiarism.

I do know what it reminds me of, though. When I was a child my brother used to get Mad magazine, which I would peruse, and even in early adulthood I’d occasionally come across it. Thus it was that in 1973 my then-boyfriend (and husband-to-be) happened on an issue that contained what we both considered a clever and funny spoof on academic writing. My boyfriend was a Ph.D. student at the time and so the whole thing struck a responsive chord with both of us, and over the decades we’d sometimes have occasion to remember the piece.

And so, by the magic of the internet, I’ve managed to find it again. You can view it here. You can even read it if you enlarge the graphic. It’s called “Rewriting Your Way to a Ph.D.,” and here’s an excerpt:

It should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of connivance in his soul that breezing through school without ever cracking a book is a cinch if one remembers two simple facts: (1) The first theme you wrote in second grade can be rewritten to fill every assignment you’ll be saddled with later on, merely by adding some appropriate big words and twisting the subject matter around a little! And (2) teachers seldom read the trash turned in by students anyway! All that really counts is filling lots and lots of pages with words, thus “proving” that you’ve emerged with a clear grasp of whatever it is you’re supposed to be grasping.

The writer proceeds to show how it’s done, with several series’ of essays, including a sequence beginning with a second-grader’s report on his summer vacation visit to his uncle’s pig farm and progressing to “A Qualitative Analysis of Swine Vision As It Pertains to Human Behavioral Response in Osborne County, Kansas” by the same author.

Life imitates art.

Once again: on caring about how Jews vote

The New Neo Posted on by

Back in December I wrote a lengthy post on the “Jewish vote” – how much people seem to care about that statistic, and the amount in terms of numbers. I strongly suggest you read that post now; it’s not particularly long but it covers a fair amount of territory.

I noticed in today’s open thread that the subject came up once again, as it so often does.

For example, commenter “Rufus T. Firefly” asks this question in response to commenter “sdferr’s” mention of Israel’s reaction to the Biden administration’s abstention in a Security Council vote on the Gaza War:

Yet, do you predict there will be much change in the voting habits of Jewish Americans this November?

The response from “sdferr” went like this:

It’s not within my ken, rufus — quite apart from my general reluctance to make predictions.

Even so, the way matters between the Bidenettes and Israel are going I won’t be surprised if Jewish voters start to change their preferences in large numbers this election season.

“Rufus T. Firefly” replied:

Unfortunately many people prefer punishing an enemy to embracing a compatriot. I think far too many American Jews still enjoy the two dimensional cartoon of an evil Trump coming for their freedoms over the reality that his administration was one of the most beneficial for the Jewish American cause in U.S. history.

Again, I suggest anyone interested in this topic read my post from this past December. But I also want to call your attention to a poll taken a month ago in New York City, a solidly blue town:

In a poll conducted by Siena College and released on Tuesday, a group of New York Jewish voters were asked about various public policies in the state of New York as well as candidate preferences for the upcoming national elections. The results were surprising – according to the poll, New York Jews prefer Trump at 53 percent and Biden at 44 percent.

Make of it what you will – after all, it’s only one poll. But it was taken before things got even worse in terms of this administration’s attitude towards Israel. I can’t find any other recent polls on the subject.

Like sdferr, I’m reluctant to make predictions. But the poll is very interesting. Of course, as I’ve pointed out many times, the more religious Jews are the more they are likely to vote Republican. For example, in 2020:

Orthodox Jews, however, stand out as a small subgroup (roughly one-in-ten Jewish adults) whose political profile is virtually the reverse of Jews as a whole: 60% of Orthodox Jews describe their political views as conservative, 75% identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP, and 81% approved of Trump’s job performance at the time of the survey.

A majority of all Jews surveyed, including more than half of Democrats, said they considered Trump friendly toward the state of Israel. Yet only about one-third (31%) said he was friendly toward Jews in the United States, and 37% described him as unfriendly toward U.S. Jews; the remainder saw him as neutral. Orthodox Jews, again, were a major exception: 77% said Trump was friendly to Jews in the United States, and nearly all the rest said he was neutral. Just 2% of Orthodox respondents described him as unfriendly to Jewish Americans.

And in October of 2020 came this poll result:

The survey from the community’s Ami Magazine found that a whopping 83 percent of Orthodox Jews said they will vote for Trump, compared to just 13% who said they’d support the Democratic Party’s nominee, Joe Biden. Four percent of respondents are undecided, with just 20 days remaining until the election

The poll also found that 76% of respondents believe the media is unfair to the president, while 14% said they believe that the press is mostly fair to Trump.

I will also reiterate that most Jews in the US live in large blue cities and vote pretty much as other residents of those cities vote. And a great many Jews are ethnic Jews only.

NOTE: I also strongly recommend this previous post of mine.

The Biden administration follows in Obama’s footsteps and abstains in the UN regarding Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s all just propaganda anyway. Votes like this in the UN have no teeth and are just ways to show Israel how little support it has and how much support Hamas has in the international community known as the UN:

The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza after the U.S. abstained from the vote on Israel’s war against Hamas.

The final vote was 14 in favor, no votes against and one abstention. After the vote, the council broke into applause.

The resolution calls for an immediate cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and for the immediate release of all hostages.

The vote comes just two days after Russia and China vetoed a resolution from the U.S. that tied a cease-fire to the release of hostages.

Why didn’t the administration veto this more recent resolution? Could it possibly have something to do with the importance of the vote in the state of Michigan in November? (And yes, that’s sarcasm; of course it does.)

This is the sort of ridiculous posturing involved:

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington could not agree with the resolution because it did not condemn Hamas for Oct. 7. But she said they “fully support” other critical objectives in the measure, allowing for an abstention.

“This should be a season of peace,” she said of Ramadan. “This resolution rightly acknowledges that during the month of Ramadan we must recommit to peace.”

“Recommit” to peace with an entity – Hamas – that has zero interest in peace unless it’s the peace that comes with the Islamic domination of the entire region and then hopefully, after that, the world (although actually, the Muslim world itself is rent by bitter and violent divisions).

This was Netanyahu’ response to the US abstention:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he will not send a delegation as planned to Washington after the United States refrained from vetoing a U.N. Security Council proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office, said that Washington’s failure to block the proposal was a “clear retreat” from its previous position, and would hurt war efforts against Hamas, as well as efforts to release over 130 hostages in Gaza captivity. …

The White House denied that the U.S. abstention reflected a change in American policy.

It actually doesn’t represent a change; the administration has given a purposely mixed message ever since Israel began its operations in Gaza. And it continues the policy of the Obama administration in the UN, in which Obama’s parting shot – after the 2016 election of Trump but before Trump had been inaugurated – was to abstain in a Security Council vote about Israel’s settlements. The abstention was seen at the time as unusual and highly significant (I went into this in detail in the post I just linked).

In other news about the war in Gaza, we have this about the ongoing battle in al Shifa Hospital [emphasis mine]:

“Right now, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists are barricading themselves inside Shifa hospital wards. Hamas is destroying Shifa Hospital,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in an English-language video statement. “Hamas is firing from inside the Shifa emergency room and maternity ward and throwing explosive devices from the Shifa burn ward. Terrorists hiding around the hospital fired mortars at our forces, causing extensive damage to the hospital buildings.”

The IDF said the number of confirmed members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad captured by troops at the Gaza City medical center had risen to 500, out of over 800 suspects arrested since the raid began last week.

Hamas has said that at least 13 patients have died during the ongoing IDF raid, alleging that they were deprived of medication or that their ventilators stopped working after Israeli forces cut hospital electricity, The New York Times reported.

International law stipulates that while a medical facility is a protected site in conflict, it loses that status if it is used for military activity. Israel has offered evidence Hamas uses such facilities as cover for terror purposes and says the group plunders humanitarian aid to take supplies for its fighters, depriving the civilian population.

Going to the Times article just linked, I found this headline and subtitle: “Witnesses Describe Fear and Deprivation at Besieged Hospital in Gaza: Several patients have died as a result of the Israeli military assault, the Gazan authorities say. Israel says the operation is targeting Hamas leaders.” The emphasis in the headline – all that many people read – is on the suffering patients at the hospital. The statement that several patients have died as a result of the Israeli assault (rather than as a result of the Hamas occupation of the hospital to use it as a terrorist base) is given pride of place, and is only identified as a statement by “Gazan authorities” rather than adding that these authorities are Hamas. And then, in a sort of “on the one hand and on the other hand” approach, the Times adds that Israel says that Hamas leaders are being targeted in the operation, as though this is just a contention open to debate rather than an obvious fact.

Appeals court in NY eases up ever-so-slightly on Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

The decision went like this:

The Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division agreed to block former President Donald Trump’s $464 million bond if he posts $175 within the next ten days for his New York civil fraud case.

Trump’s lawyers asked the court to lower the bond of pause payment, which was due today.

The decision continued the restrictions on Trump and several others in the company (including family members) from doing business in New York by applying for loans, or serving as officers of any corporation, for varying amounts of time. At this point I can’t imagine why they – or anyone else, for that matter – would want to do business in New York after a persecution such as this.

And perhaps that’s why the judges voted to make the process slightly less Draconian: they probably realize the danger the case presents to investments in NY if people are scared away. It doesn’t really change the basic injustice, however. And $175 million only seems small compared to the original figure. But it’s still an absurd amount in an absurd case that’s right out of the trials in the Alice books and only a few steps away from the Stalinist show trials; the torture here is only mental and financial so far, and the potential punishment isn’t death.

Jonathan Turley has this to say:

Yes, “repellent for many” – but for how many? It should be repellent for all.

ADDENDUM: And let’s not forget the other NY lawfare against Trump, the hush money case that’s due to start next month.