“How many lives are 1200 Israelis worth?” That chilling question was put forward by a Rhode Island history professor last week in a condemnation of Israel as a “white supremacist nation” that prompted the Hamas massacre.
Many donors and parents have been repulsed in recent weeks by such extremist viewpoints on our campuses over the Israel-Gaza war. For some of us, however, the hostile environment is nothing new on campuses where faculties have been purged of conservative and libertarian voices for years.
Indeed, many of the same figures have previously supported radical, or even violent, efforts directed against conservatives for years. This academic radical chic was long celebrated, not condemned, by the media.
My own campus is not immune from extremist rhetoric. George Washington University has seen flyers of Hamas hostages ripped down and huge images celebrating the Hamas “martyrs” protected on our buildings. Most recently, a panel was held at our medical school accusing Israel of “genocide” and describing Hamas as “resistance” fighters against oppression.
This came as Hamas announced that no hostage would be found alive if Israel did not meet its demands.
The day after Hamas made that declaration, Eric Loomis, a history professor and director of graduate studies at University of Rhode Island, wrote a column on the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money, a far-left site known for extremist rhetoric.
In his column, Loomis declared that, if Israel is not committing genocide, “it is way too close to comfort” to genocidal murder. While condemning Hamas, he said the massacre was “inevitable” and that “if you put people in an open air prison, you basically deserve the attacks you get.” He insisted that “ethnonationalist states can have no place in a liberal world” and “if you can’t agree with this when it concerns Israel, you are racist toward the Palestinians and we can move from there.”
Loomis recognizes that some may be critical of his views but ends by calling them “gigantic flaming a**holes.”
Even after weeks of such rhetoric from faculty, including Cornell University Professor Russell Rickford celebrating the massacre, it is still shocking for many. It is not shocking to those of us who are part of the dwindling number of dissenting voices on our campuses.
These very same faculty members have been fostered by the media for years. The Washington Post ran Rickford’s views and the New York Times ran those of Loomis. The latter relationship is particularly ironic after the Times effectively banned Sen. Cotton for raising the possible need to deploy the national guard to stop violent protests (a measure used on Jan. 6th).
I continue to defend the free speech rights of far-left academics despite my deep disagreement with them. The problem is not their exercise of free speech but the absence of balance or opposing voices on our campuses.
Many are celebrating the retention of Harvard President Claudine Gay as a victory of free speech. Yet, Gay oversees a university ranked dead last in protecting the free speech of others. For the many conservatives and dissenters bullied and silenced at Harvard for years, there may be less cause for celebration that the president is protected. Indeed, liberal faculty members have long enjoyed the full protection of free speech denied to the dwindling number of faculty on the right.
Many faculty members have been calling for violent attacks on conservatives and Republicans with little objection from the media or even some universities. Faculty members have freely called for “detonating” people,” calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservatives and other outrageous statements.
Conversely, for the few remaining conservatives on most faculties, there is little tolerance for controversy. Dr. Mike Adams, a professor of sociology and criminology, committed suicide after losing his academic position after an inflammatory tweet.
In this academic eco chamber, espousing conservative views is a virtual guarantee of rejection. Imagine being a young conservative professor applying to the University of Rhode Island’s history department where the director of graduate studies has stated that he has no objection to killing conservative protesters.
Other sites like Above the Law have spent years ridiculing objections to the barring of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university.
It is working. A survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
The same is true at other schools. A study found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools. A 2017 study found only 15 percent of faculties overall were conservative. Another survey showed that 33 out of 65 departments lacked a single conservative faculty member.
The last few weeks have awakened donors to the rising intolerance and extremism on our faculties. Some donors have even pulled funding, including $100 million withdrawn from the University of Pennsylvania.
Donors (and state legislatures with state-funded schools) can use their leverage to force greater diversity of thought on our campuses. The problem is not that we have these radical faculty members. The problem is that we have comparably few faculty with opposing views. The diversity of opinion on most faculties runs from the left to the far left. Some faculty members now argue that intellectual diversity is not a core or essential value in academia.
If donors want to open up our campuses, they may need to close their wallets until real reforms are implemented in higher education.
Check out this article at NewDiscourses.com, https://newdiscourses.com/2020/10/critical-race-theorys-jewish-problem/. It’s from 2020, and details what Progressives in academia have been teaching about Jews. Indeed, Progressive Communists now control academia and everything is assumed to be based in conflict theory, everyone’s an oppressor or oppressed, and if you are part of a successful group, then regardless of facts, you are white and should be eliminated. Academia is fomenting racism and bias.
Academia, the knowledge production engine of society, has been corrupted by Critical Theory based communism, which is enforced with post-modern narratives and language manipulations (since post-modernism believes there is no objective reality or truth, you are free to craft reality any way that fits your agenda, and use that for activism). You can’t even get past gatekeepers in academic publishing if you don’t adhere to progressive narratives.
While you’re at it, check out the link at the top of the page (at newdiscourses.com) for their Social Justice Encyclopedia, and look at how progressives make parallel definitions to words, so they sound like they’re doing something nice or academic when they’re really just promoting an agenda.
Only progressive communists could come up with ideas such as the fix for racism is more racism, black people can’t be racist toward white people because they don’t have the power, childhood innocence should be dismantled, and racism and systemic power are in everything (including the scientific method) and you just need to constantly help everyone see it.
Oh, and their “theories” are taught as fact.
Thanks Mr. Turley for pointing out reality and helping keep people based in the midst of all this gaslighting.
This would be a great time for conservative voices to explore their new found welcome to the free speech loving Harvard campus.
Don’t mistake this post as supporting the woke left. Rather, consider it free-speech:
As the anti-Palestinian narrative took shape in political, media and Zionist circles, it adopted a familiar line, which goes something like this: Israel is the Jewish state. If you criticize the Jewish state and/or Zionism you are therefore by definition an antisemite. Antisemitism is a “hate crime.” If you advocate or argue for any Palestinian group like Hamas, which the US government has labeled “terrorist,” you are providing “material assistance to terrorism” which is a crime for which you can be fined or imprisoned. Even if you merely criticize Jewish groups supporting Israel you are likewise an antisemite and have committed a “hate crime.” Neat, isn’t it? and the end result is that Israel, which is immune from the consequences of its actions internationally, also increasingly cannot be criticized at all without serious consequences for the critic. In other words, freedom of speech in the United States only exists, insofar as it does, if you are not disparaging Israel or even its friends due to their demonstrable behavior.
Some of those consequences were experienced recently by three presidents of prominent American universities, responding to a congressional grilling that was set up by allegations that colleges are hotbeds of antisemitism and are responsible for major increases in incidents targeting Jews. There is a certain irony in the allegations since Jews in America are the wealthiest, best educated, most politically powerful, most prestigiously employed and most protected by Homeland Security of all ethno-religious groups. And there is not much real evidence that Jews are in any way increasingly “victims” in the United States or in Europe. The antisemitic incidents that are “surging” are frequently based on criticisms of what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians and often consist of a Jewish college student being offended or annoyed by a poster or a speaker criticizing Israeli behavior. Instances of actual physical confrontation are few and far between and are immediately reported in the accommodating mainstream media to heighten the sense that Jews in America and even worldwide are threatened. Certain groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are heavily into the promotion of the narrative of Jew hatred as it is in their bottom line to do so given their donor base which likes to hear exactly that. In other words, it is all largely a contrivance to obtain political and economic benefits as well as a free pass on bad behavior that might not otherwise be forthcoming.
The three university presidents, all of whom were women, represented Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT and all three were highly respected in their respective professions prior to their presidencies. They did not anticipate New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Jewish Harvard product, who was out to nail them and make the case that academia hates Jews and is encouraging antisemitism. Stefanik was backed up by Jewish oligarchs who have threatened to sharply cut donations to the respective universities that do not toe the line, doing what Jews are often accused of doing, i.e. using their money and the power that it buys to stop all discussion on subjects that they find troubling.
Stefanik and company were particularly incensed by student pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She interpreted both expressions being calls for the destruction of Israel, which they are not. Intifada is “shaking off” in Arabic and is a call for liberating the Palestinian people and their land from the Israeli tyranny. The “river to sea” is somewhat similar, a call for a Palestinian state with actual sovereignty and neither is an explicit call for killing Israelis or Jews. They are generic cries for freedom. Stefanik curiously, though not surprisingly, did not mention the concurrent actual demands by senior Israeli government officials to displace or kill all Palestinians, something that they actually have the power to do and which might be regarded as a threat. — Phillip Giraldi
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/a-week-like-no-other-2/
@ Brad Markle: RE: Why won’t 60 Minutes run a report……” It goes far beyond your comment… “https://theconversation.com/the-us-and-rwanda-how-the-relationship-has-evolved-since-the-1994-genocide-188115”
Fraudulent Fakery. Hamas is a organisation that Mossad created in 1980’s to weaken Fatah movement and after murdering Rabin in 1990’s this swine Netanyahu the satanist took power to create this group. He begged qatar in 2020 to keep funding Hamas.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-chief-top-general-visited-qatar-begged-it-to-pay-hamas-liberman-says/
their own motto – “By deceit we shall do war…”
I hope American NY printing press dies, when the dollar is rejected globally and a revolt against US treasuries, result of that would kill this illegitimate state that steals the wealth of the brainwashed Americans, and die off like a parasite it is.
Baba Kamma 131 – A Jew shall lie, plunder, kill, rape, and torture a goyum (A non Jew) for “greater good”… [Goyum – Cattle] and greater good is ONLY for jewish talmudarians not EVERYONE else. There is a reason they have been thrown out from 1030 times in 3000 years in every kingdom they took refuge in from Russian empire to Persia empire to Babylon to Spain.
@Anonymous; RE: ” There is a reason..” There IS a reason, Jew Hater, but NOT your CRAP reasoning. Here’s a reason which explains much. Islam, through the beliefs and actions of its followers, apparently such as yourself, is responsible for its own press, as far back as the birth of its prophet, the rise of his followers, and the manner in which they swept westward and held so much of that world in their thrall for centuries. There is no pleading innocence for this people, their theology and backward culture, which would subsume nations, and has no tolerance for non-believers to the point of a sword. They constitute, as do others of the pastoral ilk, another soiled patch in the quilt of the panorama of human history to this day. Twenty-three percent of the Nobel Prizes awarded to date, and what the efforts they represent contributed to the human condition, are held by members of the Jewish community. The achievements of the State of Israel, a VERY LEGITIMATE STATE, enabled by the world community in 1947, in like kind have been well documented. The inward and suppressive doctrines of Islam have contributed to the downfall of their medieval greatness. The Afghanistan experience, the ISIL experience, among others, has shown that nothing to the benefit of humankind issues from the radicalism which prevails to the detriment of others in that community whose opposition to such would be crushed. HAMAS and others of that wretched lot lie, plunder, kill, rape, and torture, and not for the greater good. For the goal of suppression and control They did so on October 7th. Yet Jew Haters such as yourself, would encourage and advocate for the latter while permanently depriving the world of the former. That is why you and your ilk, bloated and besotted by moral and ethical turpitude fail in a world of the just. Hoisted by your own petards.
I’ve been saying this for decades, but after all, I graduated fron the University of Rhode Island in 1981, albeit the school of engineering. Yeah, the love affair with maxism has been going on here for awhile now. It’s just recently swept the rest of the country. Anyway, the point is, it’s too late, the Maxists are in control and the are going to continue to crush conservatives.
Elon Musk apparently is going to open a university in Austin.
I am glad to hear it.
If anyone can make it work, he can.
A degree from his university will mean you actually know something that will be desirable to high-end employers or something that is personally valuable.
Mind that the government doesn’t try to screw it up….avoid their ‘help’.
The mega-donors should pull all donations until colleges and universities cease communist indoctrination and return to teaching. Any donors who do not are self-identifying as communist supporters.
The withdrawal of funds by donors is useful, but it will not be decisive because many donors are also far left.
Much more useful would be for red states to force universities to abandon racist DEI initiatives by threatening to withdraw budgetary support.
And in actuality, even this may not go far enough; the universities are de facto leftist fortresses that the left exploits for the creation of anti-American armies, which then sally forth and devastate American society in countless ways. It will ultimately be necessary for red state legislatures to fire entire cohorts of university administrators and take over university administrations directly, to ensure that anti-white Marxism is eradicated, conservative, Christian academics are hired, and white male students are not discriminated against.
This is extreme, but it was the left that destroyed the ideal of a non-political campus; let them lie in the bed that they made.
Re: “The last few weeks have awakened donors to the rising intolerance and extremism on our faculties. Some donors have even pulled funding, including $100 million withdrawn from the University of Pennsylvania.”
(Jewish) free speech advocate Glenn Greenwald has noted that Jewish Billionaires are only suddenly putting the financial hammer to elite universities because Israel is the Woke topic. They had no problem with prior speech suppression against university community members who challenged authoritarian Woke sensibilities.
The internecine battle that is raging now in the Woke Universe is between the Jews who demand to be viewed as a preferred group on the Victim hierarchy versus the non-Jewish “intersectional” Woke cohort that sees Jews as merely white people with a lotta privilege and a lotta money.
This Woke food fight could be pretty entertaining.
One of the best synopsis I’ve read… Well said.
“How many lives are 1200 Israelis worth?”
Well, the neighboring Arab countries are approximately 200 times larger than Israel so if we multiply 1200 Israelis killed by 200 we get 240,000.
So….Bombs Away!
Murdering, rapist terrorists brutalized and tortured civilians and mindless college students gather mindlessly in groups, in solidarity with the terrorists against the victims. Only in a post-COVID totalitarian dystopia. Welcome to the new warped reality.
“It is worth stating why this is plainly a genocide in Gaza: [followed by scads of terrorist propaganda]”
There’s an easy solution: Hamas surrenders unconditionally.
And an easy fix to avoid such destruction in the future: Don’t invade another country. Don’t kidnap and murder its citizens. Don’t vote for or support a genocidal, dictatorial government. Don’t be a puppet of a country (Iran) that openly calls for the destruction of Israel.
That’s a Jail you talking about F*** -wit…. The jewish state does not allow airport to operate and sea port.
So get lost with your fraud “Dont invade another country” THERE ARE NO TWO COUNTRIES its one country against a jail of 2.1 million people.
And I hope Iran destroy this illegitimate banking woke anti christian and anti human state that is peddling the NWO with Yuval Noah Harari who lives in Israel.
As Kissinger said 8 years ago that within 10 years Israel will cease to exist.
He dead now
Don’t mistake this post as supporting the woke left. Rather, consider it free-speech:
It is worth stating why this is plainly a genocide in Gaza:
1) Deliberate destruction of the infrastructure which supports the civilian population, including water treatment, electricity, sewerage systems, bakeries and fishing boats;
2) Deliberate destruction of almost all medical facilities;
3) Deliberate destruction of educational facilities, from universities to primary schools;
4) Deliberate destruction of the infrastructure of civil society, including Supreme Court, Parliament, Ministries and Council buildings and deliberate destruction of administrative records;
5) Deliberate blocking of food aid inducing mass starvation;
6) Massive and indiscriminate bombardment. In wars the general percentage of children among those killed varies from 6 to 8%. In Ukraine it is 6%. In Gaza it is 42%. This is indiscriminate destruction of an ethnic group;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/12/murder/
too funny
Is there any actual evidence? All I see here are assertions.
As a rule, evidence is usually abundant in genocides (Nazi Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, etc.).
@Anonymous: RE:” All I see here are assertions…” When Islamists murder for cause consistent with their beliefs, they cry ‘genocide’ when retribution is heaped upon them for cause consistent with their offence. That’s the game.
Can you tell me what war you are NOT describing ?
WWI ? WWII ? Korea ? Vietnam ? GWI ? GWII ? Afghanistan ? Ukraine ?
Why is it that you think Israel is required to do a better job of fighting an enemy that hides in hospitals and schools and uses civilians as Human sheilds than the US was at dealing with Afganistan or Iraq ?
In Gaza the high rate of deaths of children – presuming that you trust the data which is entirely from HAMAS embedded reporters who will die if they do not report what they are told, regardless the death rate mirrors the population itself The average age of a person in Gaza is 17.
No this is not the indiscriminate destruction of an ethnic group.
It is actually quite normal for war conducted following the international rules.
You noted Ukraine – civilian casualties on the russian side are low – because the war is being fought in Ukraine.
On the Ukrainian side there are 3 civilian deaths for every Ukrainian soldier killed.
While Russia really does not care much about the lives of UKrainians – and is likely deliberately targeting civilians.
And russia is violating the rules of war.
At the same time Russia is not engeged in genocide.
They are merely trying to defeat an enemy. We all hope Putin fails. Regardless most of us are not accusing Putin of genocide.
He is merely doing what countries do to win a war.
Making the war more painful for the enemy.
I would note that the ACTUAL rules of war, prohibit the targeting of civilians. But they do NOT prohibit the deliberate killing of civillians as part of accomplishing a military objective. Just as the US will put a h311fire up the ass of a terrorist, even if they know that will kill a dozen civilians.
There are over 2M Gazan’s. There will be over 2M gazans when this is over – even using Hamas’s inflated numbers.
Qatar alone provides approximately 15,000 in aid PER GAZAN per year. And likely will do so after.
There is nothing stopping the people of Gaza (or the west bank) from doing with the land they control what Israel has done with what it controls.
The question is after this is over are Gazan’s going to abandon their call for genocide, and look to improve their own lot.
Or return to building tunnels rockets and buy weapons instead of what its people need.
Feb 11, 2019 — Qatar gave over $1.1 billion in aid to the Gaza Strip over the past six years, according to figures reportedly presented to Israel.
TIMES OF ISRAEL
that’s 91 dollars and 66 cents per year per 2 million gazans
that’s really way far short of 15,000.00 dollars per year per gazan
“Qatar alone provides approximately 15,000 in aid PER GAZAN per year. ” YEAH, SURE IT DOES.
try 91 dollars.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/qatar-gave-over-1-1-billion-to-gaza-strip-over-six-years-report/
WTF
Best assessment of the Gaza situation yet. Stop using international aid to buy weapons and build tunnels. Stop teaching school children that Jews drink Arab children’s blood. You know, those types of things.
Whatever you might think of conditions in Gaza right now – they pale in comparison to those in Germany or Japan at the end of WWII.
Germans and japanese were in very real danger of dying of starvation at the end of the war.
This war has not lasted long enough for Gazan’s to have done more than lose a bit of weight.
Missing dinner is not starving.
According to a documentary I saw once a few incidents of cannibalism occurred in Berlin at the end of WWII. Wish I could remember the title of the doc. Will have to search my HULU or Prime Video viewing history.
“Missing dinner is not starving.”
Yes it is to anti-Semites who are writing about Israel.
Craig Murray can’t escape his words. Here is a modest rebuke of Craig Murray.
There are a few prolific writers that every anti-Semite will quote.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Craig_Murray
@Anonymous: RE: “It is worth stating why this is plainly a genocide in Gaza:..” You want to talk genocide. Here’s HAMAS’ ‘Mein Kampf’. A self-declared blueprint, only for a genocide, but for subsuming the non-Islam world. This is the kind of hate and madness which caused the Nazi Reich and Imperial Japan to make excrement of their nations and their peoples. Why the Communists of Russia, China, and Cambodia slaughtered millions during the 20th Century. Why thousands are yet murdered in Africa. You even hate each other, Sunni, against Shia, against Wahabist, and so on. This is why lovers of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear go to war. To clean out the rot, and make the world whole. This is why you fail: spiritually, culturally, politically, socio-economically. Bloated, besotted, wretched, morally and ethically corrupted butchers with nothing to offer but misery and death in the name of G-d. The supreme profanity. https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/880818.htm, .