Is Free Speech Really Free?

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Joe Weber

Taking stances can cost one a job

As anti-Israel forces on and off campuses continue to protest, some employers are launching counterprotests of their own – firing or refusing to hire those who go public with pro-Palestine stances. The trend reflects an unsettling truism about free speech: it may be anything but “free,” as speakers have to live with the consequences.

Take, for instance, the cases of two global law firms – New York-based Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Chicago-based Winston & Strawn. Davis Polk revoked job offers to three law students at Columbia and Harvard because they were leaders in student organizations that had backed letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s savage Oct. 7 attacks. Similarly, Winston & Strawn revoked an offer to an NYU student, the former president of the school’s University Bar Association, who had written a message to the group, saying “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”

Neil Barr, chair and managing partner of Davis Polk, told The New York Times that the firm did not want to employ anyone who endorsed the Hamas atrocities.

“The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm’s value system,” the firm said in a statement. To ensure that “we continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment, the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm.”

Davis Polk noted that in two of the cases, it was considering reversing course and hiring them because they said they had not endorsed the criticism of Israel. The letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s attack did not include individual names. It’s not clear what the law firm knew or didn’t know about the students, other than that they were leaders in the group or groups that backed the statements.

As for the NYU student who lost an offer at Winston & Strawn, that person has doubled down on the criticism of Israel. Ryna Workman, who appeared on ABC defending Palestine and criticizing Israel, was caught on camera covering up posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas with pro-Palestine signs. Appallingly, Workman repeatedly ducked questions about whether she – or “they” as Workman prefers – had any empathy for Israeli victims.

Workman was ousted by NYU law school Dean Troy McKenzie as head of the student bar association. Other members of the group had quickly distanced themselves from Workman, saying they mourned “the tremendous loss of human life,” while sidestepping any specific condemnation of Hamas. Subsequently, all members of the association quit, saying they feared for their safety, and the group disbanded.

As many American business leaders remain horrified by the Hamas atrocities, some say they will refuse to hire students who take stances similar to Workman’s. Some major Wall Street investors, including hedge fund chief William Ackman, have called on companies to blacklist members of groups that have taken pro-Hamas stances. Ackman, a Harvard graduate, also demanded that Harvard release the names of such students.

As reported by Forbes, Ackman tweeted that “a number of CEOs” approached him, asking for the student names to ensure “none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” One CEO, Jonathan Neman of the healthy fast casual chain Sweetgreen, responded to Ackman’s post on X, saying he “would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” to which healthcare services company EasyHealth CEO David Duel responded: “Same.”

Still other outfits have canned those who refused to condemn Hamas or backed Palestinians. Artforum fired its top editor, David Velasco, after a call for a ceasefire, signed by thousands of artists, appeared on the publication’s website.

“We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes,” the letter said.

As reported by ARTNews, a sister publication, Artforum publishers Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza in a statement wrote, “On Thursday, October 19, an open letter regarding the crisis in the Middle East was shared on Artforum’s website and social platforms without our, or the requisite senior members of the editorial team’s, prior knowledge. This was not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process. Had the appropriate members of the editorial team been consulted, the letter would have been presented as a news item with the relevant context.”

Velasco was fired soon after high-profile dealers, artists, and other signed another letter that referred to “an uninformed letter signed by artists who do not represent the artistic community at large,” ARTNews reported. This new letter, titled “A United Call from the Art World: Advocating for Humanity,” referred to the Hamas attack, but not to Gazans caught up in the warfare.

For his part, Velasco, who had worked at the publication since 2005 and served as editor since 2017, was unrepentant in comments in The New York Times. “I have no regrets,” he told the paper. I’m disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure.”

As the Times reported, the initial letter was widely condemned, drawing responses by figures in the art world. On WhatsApp, campaigns were organized to dissuade advertisers from working with the magazine.

Similar actions are occurring at other media outlets. The board of the British-based biomedical and life sciences journal eLife fired editor-in-chief Michael Eisen, after he praised The Onion for a satirical post headlined “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.”

As reported by NBC News, Eisen, who is Jewish and has family in Israel, posted that he had been fired “for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I expressed my opinion, an opinion about the way that American institutions, especially universities, have been kind of not expressing equal concern for the deaths of Palestinians as they have Israelis, which I think is a moral mistake and a political mistake,” Eisen told NBC. “I don’t think that Israeli scientists should feel like the scientific community does not have their backs. The support has been very strong — I thought it was obvious. People don’t always express themselves well in these situations. I wish I made clear how I empathized with them, too.”

Similarly, PhillyVoice.com canned a sports reporter after he tweeted his “solidarity” with Palestine. The Philadelphia 76ers organization tweeted on X: “We stand with the people of Israel and join them in mourning the hundreds of innocent lives lost to terrorism at the hands of Hamas,” along with the hashtag #StandWithIsrael. As The Guardian reported, journalist Jackson Frank, who covered the team, responded: “This post sucks! Solidarity with Palestine always.”

And then there are the doxxing trucks. Operated by the group Accuracy in Media, these mobile billboards have shown up at campuses including Columbia, Harvard and Penn showcasing the faces of members of anti-Israel campus groups. The trucks are emblazoned with legends such as “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

While AIM leader Adam Guillette argues the trucks merely “amplify” information, they have drawn heat as amounting to harassment. The Harvard Hillel Jewish center “strongly condemns any attempt to threaten and intimidate” students who signed the letter, Harvard’s student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported. And the University of California Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the truck “despicable,” the New York Times reported. Columbia University president Minouche Shafik issued a statement before the latest truck appeared on the university’s campus, saying some Columbia students “have been victims” of doxxing, calling it a “form of online harassment” that will “not be tolerated,” according to Forbes.

Some demonstrators at Drexel and Penn universities covered their faces and declined to speak publicly, saying they feared being targeted by university officials or losing financial aid, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Some noted the doxxing trucks and pointed to a man filming demonstrators on his phone. A Penn alumna at the rally complained, “The surveillance, harassment, and intimidate of these young people is like no other.”

In the academic world, few would dispute that the free exchange of ideas – even noxious ones – should be free of punishment. Students, especially, should be able to speak their views and debate without fear.

However, employers are also free to shun those whose views they find reprehensible. The world off campus is a lot harsher.

As the New York Times reported, in another social media post, hedge fund manager Ackman said he was “100% in support of free speech.” But, he added, “one should be prepared to stand up and be personally accountable for his or her views.”

If Not Now, When?

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Joe Weber

Dissension on campuses over the Mideast makes for a teachable moment

Demonstrators at Columbia University, source: Getty Images via NBC New York

As backers of Israel and Palestine mount increasingly strident opposing demonstrations on campuses and angry donors withhold their funds, educators find themselves in a bind more difficult than anything they’ve seen since the Vietnam War. For university leaders and academics, the Mideast war raises troubling issues of free speech and the teaching of history, and matters of simple civility. It even poses threats of physical danger.

Consider Columbia University, which cancelled its annual fundraising campaign because of turmoil on the campus. An Israeli student suffered minor injuries on Oct. 12 after a young woman hit him with a stick, breaking a finger, when he approached her as she tore down posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas in its Oct. 7 assault. The university also closed its campus to the public because of competing rallies on its grounds.

The school drew international headlines when Columbia business school professor, Shai Davidai, on Oct. 18 delivered an impassioned video in which he decried the university’s president for failing to speak out against student groups that support Hamas. Davidai, an Israeli, said such groups look on his 2-year-old and 7-year-old children as legitimate targets in the war. “You can be pro-Israel and pro-Palestine and anti-terror,” he said. “I know, because I am.”

On the same day, Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, appeared to strive for even-handedness in a statement:

“Unfortunately, some are using this moment to spread antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry against Palestinians and Israelis, and various other forms of hate,” said Shafik, an Egyptian-born British-American economist. “I have been disheartened that some of this abhorrent rhetoric is coming from members of our community, including members of our faculty and staff. Especially at a time of pain and anger, we must avoid language that vilifies, threatens, or stereotypes entire groups of people.”

While conspicuously avoiding any criticism of Hamas, she blasted so-called doxxing efforts, in which students have been shamed publicly for supporting statements that blamed Israel for the Hamas attack. A group recently drove a truck near the Columbia campus displaying the names and faces of such students on a mobile billboard. A similar truck had appeared near Harvard University and was condemned by the campus Hillel, among others.

Pro-Israel rally, source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Then there’s the University of Pennsylvania, where leading Jewish donors were first incensed about a Sept. 23 Palestinian literary conference that featured prominent antisemites and later were enraged at the administration’s slowness in condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities in southern Israel. University officials waited three days before issuing a statement calling the assault “horrific” and “abhorrent” – a reaction some donors regarded as too little, too late. Donors of tens of millions of dollars are now withholding funds and demanding that administrators resign.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Penn, Drexel and Temple University pro-Palestinian students on Oct. 25 rallied against what they argued was a lopsided pro-Israel atmosphere on their campuses. “Folks have to censor what they say,” a Drexel graduate student told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “They have to not speak about certain things because they’re afraid of how professors will react, they’re afraid of how the administration will react – and the reason this fear exists is because they’ve seen it happen to others.”

All this has been red meat for opportunistic politicians, who are calling for deportations of any students who support Hamas.

“In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see the open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. They’re teaching your children hate,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a speech in Iowa. “Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities, and we will send them straight back home.”

Others parroted his sentiments. On “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that “any of those students who are here on visas, those visas should be canceled, and they should be repatriated back to their home country. That’s a no-brainer.” As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, he told a Fox News interviewer, “You don’t have a right to be here on a visa. You don’t have a right to be studying in the United States.”

Florida officials went even further. The head of the Florida state university system, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, acting in conjunction with DeSantis, ordered campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine to shut down. Rodrigues’s letter said it was felony in Florida to support a terrorist organization. As reported by Inside Higher Ed, the University of Florida and the University of South Florida host such chapters, though other campuses may have chapters that are not recognized as official student organizations.

Several university officials, particularly in Ivy League schools, have been criticized either for refusing to condemn the terrorists who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 or for doing so late. This came in stark contrast to an email to alums from University of Florida President Ben Sasse, a former U.S. senator from Nebraska, who earned national attention for his blunt reaction shortly after the attack.

“I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism,” Sasse wrote. “This shouldn’t be hard. Sadly, too many people in elite academia have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby, or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try to blame the raped women, beheaded baby, or the murdered grandmother. In other grotesque cases, they express simple support for the terrorists.… This thinking isn’t just wrong, it’s sickening. It’s dehumanizing. It is beneath people called to educate our next generation of Americans.”

Sasse added that he expected anti-Israel demonstrations on campus, which he promised would be protected as a matter of free speech. And, indeed, pro-Palestinian students staged a walkout and demonstration on Oct. 25. During that protest, one man briefly tried to lead the chants, shouting, “Long Live Hamas,” the public radio station WUFT reported. But, as it reported: “The large crowd then became silent, with audible pushback coming from within the group. The man then left in anger.” An organizer said the man was not part of the event.

At some schools, such as Manhattan College and Fordham University, interfaith organizations have tried to bring pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students together to try to find common ground, an effort met with mixed results, according to Inside Higher Ed. Fordham’s Muslim Student Association, for instance, refused to take part in a vigil planned after the Hamas attack as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians, arguing that there have been no such vigils for long-suffering Palestinians.

As Israel bombards Gaza and seems to be inching toward an invasion aimed at uprooting Hamas, competing passions on university campuses are sure to grow. They will test the ability of university leaders to be morally clear about such matters as Hamas’s savagery, as well as compassion for Gazans who have long suffered under the terrorist group and who now are suffering more as a result of its actions.

Indeed, the war sadly raises the need on campuses for better education about the Mideast conflict, a bloody story of two peoples with legitimate claims to the same land – much as either might deny the other’s claim. Well-schooled academics should refute Palestinian claims that Israel is a case of “colonization” by Jews, who after all have been in the land for millennia. But they also need to recognize and teach about the rights of Palestinians who should be able to share the land.

Some of the most illuminating views on the Mideast recently have come from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who touched on the campus demonstrations. He chided pro-Palestinian protesters for the “anti-colonial” pap they espouse, even as he criticized Israeli West Bank settlements that he has no use for. Friedman wrote: “These progressive demonstrators seem to believe that all of Israel is a colonial enterprise — not just the West Bank settlements — and therefore the Jewish people do not have the right either to self-determination or self-defense in their ancestral homeland, whether it’s within post-1967 borders or pre-1967 ones.”

“To reduce this incredibly complex struggle of two peoples for the same land to a colonial war is to commit intellectual fraud,” he wrote. “Or as the Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi put it in The Times of Israel on Wednesday: ‘To blame the occupation and its consequences wholly on Israel is to dismiss the history of Israeli peace offers and Palestinian rejection. To label Israel as one more colonialist creation is to distort the unique story of the homecoming of an uprooted people, a majority of whom were refugees from destroyed Jewish communities in the Middle East.’”

And then there are insightful scholars such as Ned Lazarus of George Washington University, an international affairs professor who had long worked for Seeds of Peace in Jerusalem. There, he promoted peaceful conflict resolution between Palestinians and Israelis, and he has since written extensively about Israeli-Palestinian peace-building efforts. He bemoans the loss of innocent lives in Gaza, but in clear-eyed fashion he fixes the blame for that squarely on Hamas.

In a recent Atlantic piece, Lazarus sadly wrote: “I don’t see how the cycle of hatred, killing, and suffering ends while there is a fundamentalist terrorist organization explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews—read its 1988 founding charter; the message is not subtle—equipped with legions of fighters ready to kill and die to achieve its goals, an arsenal of missiles, and a powerful state sponsor, Iran, that enables its violence and shares its explicitly genocidal agenda.”

The war is testing the rights of all on campuses to free speech, even when their arguments may be ill-informed, wrong-headed and blind to Hamas depravity. As the folks at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression put it, tearing down posters on campuses or otherwise stifling expression is misguided and unacceptable.

“While FIRE takes no stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we staunchly support free speech and oppose censorship in all its forms,” the group said. “In doing so, we oppose tearing down expressive materials and meeting speech with violence, no matter how upsetting public discourse or current events may be. Such tactics stifle debate and chill conversation, and they have no place anywhere in a free country, least of all on a college campus.”

Unsettling as the campus protests are, they also present a teaching moment for anyone who cares about innocents on both sides and who cares about history and justice. Some may argue that now is not the moment; emotions are running high and raw. But, if not now, when?

When Journalists Write about Terrorists

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Joe Weber

What are the “rules of war” for media?

Alison Leigh Cowan, source: The New York Times

Alison Leigh Cowan, a veteran of BusinessWeek and The New York Times, puts the Times in the crosshairs this week for its coverage of Gaza. In an unsettling piece in Commentary, she cites a pair of “grave journalistic errors.” Noting she had spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at the paper, she observes that the outlet’s “brazen self-assuredness and moral blindness in moments like these is breaking my heart.”

The issues she raises are troubling ones for the Times, in particular, and for journalism in general.

First, Cowan blasts the paper for rehiring a freelance videographer, Soliman Hijjy, an admirer of Adolf Hitler. On Facebook, a few years ago, he had posted such messages as, “How great you are, Hitler.” As reported by National Review, he also posted a photo of himself in the Middle East with the caption: “In a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust.” That same year, the NR reported, he also said he was “in tune like Hitler during the Holocaust.”

For such sins, the Times had fired Hijjy a year ago. But, desperate for someone who could file material from Gaza, the paper turned to him again after the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 and it got what it asked for, sympathetic coverage from the Palestinian side. Hijjy’s work had been saluted in publications such as The Electronic Intifada, a Chicago-based outfit that has been described as a “cyberpropaganda” source for Palestinians. Presumably, the Times editors saw his pro-Palestinian work as balancing its other coverage.

Never mind that Hijjy was lambasted by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan. Erdan derided the Times for spreading antisemitism through such hires: “The @nytimes has just rehired a NAZI. Let that sink in. Soliman Hijjy praises Hitler, and the NYT rehired him,” Erdan posted on X. “We all saw how the NYT immediately parroted Hamas’ lies regarding the al-Ahli hospital (which Hijjy contributed to) and still refuses to retract these fabrications.”

Indeed, the inaccurate Oct. 17 hospital explosion coverage — including the videographer’s efforts — reflects terribly on the Times and other media outlets influenced by it. It also draws Cowan’s fury and disappointment.

As she recounts, the Times issued an alert that day, citing the anything-but-independent Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza in saying “an Israeli strike hit the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing at least 200 Palestinians.” The paper repeatedly used the words “massacre” and “carnage,” Cowan noted.

The loaded language and mislaid blame helped fuel a furor in Arab world and undergirded Palestinian protests on campuses across the U.S. It sank a meeting between President Biden and Arab leaders.

Cowan criticizes the paper for updates larded with such potent terms. They characterized the “attack” as “staggering,” “horrific” and “devastating,” and a possible act of “genocide.” Hardly the neutral language the Times claims to prefer.

Then, too much later, came the corrections. A day after the blast, the paper added a correction to an update, saying: “An earlier version of this article described incorrectly a video filmed by a woman at the hospital after the blast. The hospital itself was not ruined; its parking lot was damaged most heavily in the blast.”

Subsequent reports in the Times and elsewhere carried the news that U.S. (and Israeli) authorities had determined that the “strike” at the hospital was in fact the effect of a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. Because it relied on Hamas, the early reporting was simply wrong. Of course, the damage wrought by the poor reporting had been done and Hamas had enjoyed a propaganda boon.

After that, it took the newspaper six days to issue its wan mea culpa. It published an editor’s note on Oct. 23, saying it had relied too heavily on Hamas sources, and didn’t make it clear that its information was unverified – i.e., it had run material without knowing it was true or not, a cardinal sin in journalism. In language far more subdued than the terms used in the hospital explosion reports, the note said: “Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified.” No apology, no statement of regret.

It may be that journalists can’t be expected to avoid taking sides in a war. That’s especially the case when they report on atrocities such as the Oct. 7 horrors committed by Hamas in southern Israel – events that truly deserve to be called massacres. If they have hearts, they can’t avoid being appalled by the ugliness, as Graeme Wood of The Atlantic was when he viewed video of the attacks that originated with Hamas and was then screen for reporters by the Israel Defense Forces.

“The videos show pure, predatory sadism; no effort to spare those who pose no threat; and an eagerness to kill nearly matched by eagerness to disfigure the bodies of the victims,” Wood reported. “In several clips, the Hamas killers fire shots into the heads of people who are already dead. They count corpses, taking their time, and then shoot them again. Some of the clips I had not previously seen simply show the victims in a state of terror as they wait to be murdered, or covered with bits of their friends and loved ones as they are loaded into trucks and brought to Gaza as hostages.”

Were those videos propaganda by the IDF? Clearly, they didn’t originate with the Israelis and weren’t false. Certainly, such imagery reinforced the view that Israelis had been subjected to extraordinary viciousness. And certainly, the IDF released the assemblage of them – albeit only to journalists who were not allowed to record them with cameras – in hopes that the screening would engender support for the Israeli military actions to come.

But that’s not the same as the lies Hamas fomented over the hospital explosion. Tragically and disgustingly, the videos were genuine.

Journalists, especially those covering wars, need to walk fine lines. Thus, many avoid using terms such as “terrorist,” instead opting for the seemingly neutral “militants.” However, what should one reasonably call the Hamas “fighters” who conducted the Oct. 7 massacres? Clearly, those men murdered innocents and clearly they were using terror as their weapon of choice. Also, Hamas is regarded by the U.S. and other countries as a terrorist group.

Not surprisingly, the neutral language has drawn criticism. Rachael Thomas, a member of the Canadian Parliament, slammed the Canadian Broadcasting Company for failing to take sides against the horrors of Oct. 7 and for avoiding terms such as “terrorist.” Her demand for a review of the CBC’s coverage failed after some members argued – sensibly – that Parliament shouldn’t police what members of a free press do.

In fairness, war journalists have to be mindful of the language they use, as well as the stories they tell. Hamas, in particular, has a history of intimidating journalists who stray too far from their views of the conflict. The group’s tactics have in the past drawn condemnation from the Foreign Press Association. For their own safety, journalists have to strive toward neutrality, at least publicly.

Thomas Friedman, source: The New York Times

Even as many journalists develop sympathies, the best can be relied on to deliver true and accurate accounts and fair analysis. Journalist-turned-commentator Thomas Friedman supports Israel’s right to exist, for instance, but he also takes issue regularly with the country’s policies. Indeed, he fears that impending military action in Gaza by the IDF could backfire disastrously. And Bret Stephens lays the blame for the many deaths – recently and to come — squarely on the heads of Hamas, a conclusion that even Palestinian sympathizers would be hard-pressed to deny, if they are intellectually honest.

Both Friedman and Stephens offer their insights as columnists for The New York Times. Before becoming an opinion-writer, Friedman was a distinguished shoe-leather journalist covering the Mideast. For his part, before joining the Times, Stephens was a foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2013. From 2002 to 2004, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.

No Hitler-loving videographer could equal their work, of course.

Cowan acknowledges the good work of many war correspondents, but she also sagely warns about the dangers of swallowing inaccuracies any side might provide. “We all stand in the debt of courageous correspondents who pursue the most dangerous and searing wartime stories out there,” she writes. “But journalism’s warriors must stick to the facts and leave the making of propaganda to someone else.”

Does the Truth Matter?

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Joe Weber

In the Israel-Palestine conflict facts can be elusive and, maybe, pointless

Aftermath of attack on Al Ahli Hospital, source: Newsweek

In war, it’s said, truth is the first casualty. Indeed, the late journalist and professor Phillip Knightly wrote a book about misinformation in wartime that is must-reading for serious reporters. Given the Al Ahli hospital explosion in Gaza, his work is especially apt.

The explosion, which American and Israeli intelligence officials have persuasively contended was triggered by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, has been a PR bonanza for Hamas. Across that Arab world, Anti-Israeli forces rushed to embrace the terrorist claims that only an Israeli missile could have caused the disaster, dismissing Israeli counterclaims out of hand. Even as American intelligence sources confirmed those counterclaims, the fury has continued.

But the effects went well beyond the demonstrations. Several Arab leaders cancelled their planned meeting with President Biden, depriving everyone involved of a chance for face-to-face diplomacy that could have been helpful. Outside of Israel, the explosion also pushed into the background the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, the killings of more than 1,400 people, where the terrorist group exulted in savagery unprecedented in the long conflict. The 199 people children, elderly and others taken hostage have all but disappeared from the headlines.

American media outlets are striving to verify the American and Israeli findings about the explosion. That is as it should be. Ever since the Pentagon Papers, at least, independent verification is essential, and skepticism is warranted. Persuasive as the latest evidence seems to be, checking is crucial, especially as misinformation has abounded in this war.

However, the sad reality is that the truth may not matter except, maybe, as a historical point of interest. Even if Islamic Jihad’s ineptitude was at fault, Israel’s critics will likely argue that the assault Israel has mounted on Gaza is the underlying cause and, thus, the blame falls to Israel. Of course, Israel would not be bombarding Gaza if not for the attack by Hamas to begin with, something the anti-Israel forces appallingly ignore.

The reality is that in the eyes of its haters, Israel can do nothing right. Indeed, they deny its right to exist. The fashionable argument, which appears all too often on Linked In, X and elsewhere, is that Israelis are just Western colonizers (an absurd but common contention in Palestinian academic circles in the U.S., one that ignores the long history Jews have had in the land).

Moreover, the inability of Palestinian sympathizers to demonstrate even a shred of compassion for Israelis is simply stunning. The claims of some that they are rallying against “genocide” of the Palestinian people is obscene in light of a true genocide, the Holocaust.

It bears repeating that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have one purpose. That is to kill Jews (or at least drive them out of the land). And, staggeringly, they think nothing of sacrificing their own people as they pursue this. Thus, their efforts to discourage Gazans from evacuating areas Israel has said they should leave, reportedly even to the extent of blocking them. The heartlessness of the terrorists – much like that of ISIS – knows no bounds. Their misuse of Islam to justify their murderousness leaves one agog.

Tragically, many more people will die in this war on both sides. Israel seems determined to uproot Hamas and Islamic Jihad, perhaps through a ground invasion and, one hopes, a short-lived occupation. Even critics of the likely invasion, such as Thomas Friedman, implicitly acknowledge that replacing the terrorists with a legitimate government could be helpful (I would suggest essential).

Of course, the enormous question is, what comes after the terrorists are crushed or routed militarily? Who will run Gaza and care for its 2 million people, most of whom are innocents trapped in what critics understandably call an open-air prison? Certainly, Israel doesn’t want to be responsible for the place again. Indeed, if not for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Gaza would likely be a more open and accessible place, with arrangements such as that of the West Bank, whose residents can work in Israel. Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, Hamas has squandered any opportunity to build its economy and move toward peaceful coexistence.

Some observers, such as Bret Stephens, argue that moderate Arab regimes could replace the terrorists in overseeing Gaza. Indeed, given the overtures Saudi Arabia had been making toward Israel, the kingdom could play a powerful role there, along with Jordan and, perhaps, Egypt. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such nations rose to aid their fellow-Arabs? It appears that President Biden is thinking along those lines, at least in terms of the need to vanquish Hamas.

Even as Jewish-Arab strife enters its second century in and around Israel, it remains the case that wars do end in time – sometimes more quickly than one can imagine. Just look at Germany, Japan and the U.S. and the rest of Europe not so long ago. Is it Pollyannish to think that horrific ugliness Hamas has committed — and the response it is generating it — could ultimately lead to some sort of resolution? Might this battle over Gaza be a final one, or close to it? Might the innocents in Gaza get humane government?

First, though, a lot more ugliness is imminent. And it will be the media’s job to report on it – as fully, accurately and thoroughly as possible. That job involves sorting through inevitable misinformation and outlets such as the Associated Press, Reuters and The New York Times are doing their best to combat it. Fact-checking is necessary, but whether it makes a difference in hard-set public attitudes is arguable.

Where are the Palestinians Appalled by Hamas?

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Joe Weber

Some students on U.S. campuses appear extraordinarily callous

Demonstrators at Cambridge City Hall, Source: Boston Herald

As Palestinian voices have grown more strident at universities all across the country in recent years, misinformation has flourished. But the latest spate of statements from organizations on campuses ranging from Ohio State to Harvard reflects astonishing insensitivity to the brutality and immorality of Hamas.

At Ohio State, the campus affiliate of the Students for Justice for Palestine praised the “heroic resistance in Gaza.” At Harvard, over 30 student organizations signed a letter written by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” as reported by Inside Higher Ed.

At the University of Pennsylvania, a group has called for a protest against an alleged “pro-Israel narrative” at media outlets including the NPR affiliate WHYY. At the University of Virginia, Students for Justice in Palestine celebrated the Hamas attacks as “a step towards a free Palestine,” as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

At Tufts University, a Jewish student leader, Micah Gritz, told The Hill that the “campus environment” has been “horrifying.” He added: “On campus, we’re seeing students either turn a blind eye to the conflict, or we’re seeing those who are openly celebrating our pain, you know, glorifying it, justifying it … They’re casting the murder of Jews and Israelis as progressive, as liberation. It’s just honestly very, very scary as a Jewish student on campus who has friends and family in Israel.”

The moral blindness among some members of Palestinian student groups leaves one aghast. Have they not seen the horrors inflicted on innocents by Hamas? Surely, they cannot truly celebrate the ghastliness, as reported by The New York Times and media around the world.

Certainly, Palestinians have reason to protest conditions in the West Bank and in Gaza and to demand better. But for them to side with the wanton murderers of Hamas beggars belief – especially when the terrorists have done nothing to improve the lot of Gazans since Israel left the area in 2005. Instead, the group has focused on building rockets and arming their deluded followers. Siding with such vicious murderers boggles the mind.

Where are the Palestinian voices on campus calling for an end to Hamas terrorism, demanding an end to its undemocratic tyranny in Gaza? Where are the Palestinians calling for peaceful coexistence with Israel (a prospect Hamas has all but destroyed for now)? Where are the Palestinians at U.S. universities decrying the savagery of recent days? Where are the Palestinians condemning Hamas for the awful retaliation to come, as Israel moves on Gaza to root out terrorists who surely knew they would bring such devastation on their own people?

Some Arabs have courageously spoken out against the actions of the terrorists. Perhaps the most eloquent is Lucy Aharish, an Arab-Israeli who spoke of “our beloved country” – Israel – and lambasted those who failed to condemn the Hamas attack. Hear her moving comments here.

Have similar sentiments been stifled, with Palestinians cowed into submission, as so many Gazans have been suppressed by Hamas? Public support for the terrorists has been common around the world, as The Times of Israel has reported: “From Ramallah to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, people have distributed candies, danced and chanted prayers in support of the ‘resistance’ to Israel’s long-standing control of Palestinian land.”

And yet, backing for Hamas is hardly universal in Gaza. Half of Gazans agreed with the statement “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders” in a poll by The Washington Institute. As the FIKRA Forum reported: “In fact, Gazan frustration with Hamas governance is clear; most Gazans expressed a preference for PA administration and security officials over Hamas—the majority of Gazans (70%) supported a proposal of the PA sending ‘officials and security officers to Gaza to take over the administration there, with Hamas giving up separate armed units,’ including 47% who strongly agreed. Nor is this a new view—this proposal has had majority support in Gaza since first polled by The Washington Institute in 2014.”

Is anti-Hamas sentiment more common among Palestinians on campus than the latest headline-grabbing pronouncements by some groups suggest? Are they too fearful to speak out? A member of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee at Indiana University, asking for anonymity out of safety concerns, told the student newspaper: “We just stand for peace, it’s an emotional conflict … We don’t represent Hamas, and we don’t condone the actions of Hamas. But we also don’t condone the actions of the Israeli military. We do not want to see Palestinian children or Israeli children killed in this siege. It is a tragic event, and we hope things deescalate as soon as they can.”

One can only hope that there are other Palestinian students in the U.S. with more humanity than some of their local leaders and spokespeople appear to have. Surely, there are more Palestinians at such schools who share the revulsion of most in the civilized world. It would be heartening to hear more from them.

The Media and the Mideast

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Joe Weber

Journalists report on the horrors perpetrated by Hamas

Music festival attack aftermath, source: Wall Street Journal

It is so terribly difficult to write about the atrocities in Israel. For anyone who embraces idea of the Jewish homeland and her people, the horrors perpetrated by Hamas are beyond awful.

One hears echoes of the Gestapo in the maniacal, indiscriminate killings of hundreds at a music festival, in the raids on people’s houses all across the south, in the stealing of people from their children, in the stealing of children. In the rocket attacks, one hears the whistle of V-2s in London.

But even for non-Jews or those with no connection to Israel, the sheer monstrousness and inhumanity defies explanation. How could these terrorists be so heartless, so savage? Reared on hatred and propaganda, they acted like animals. And, as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said of the severe and growing Israeli response, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Hamas officials not only bear the stain of killing hundreds in Israel but will now have blood on their hands for the noncombatant Palestinians killed or to be killed in response. As the organization’s leaders cower in bunkers and safe hiding places, they are in effect victimizing their own people.

Journalistically, covering all this has been a huge challenge. The counts of dead and wounded climbed almost by the hour in the first few days and surely will never be precise. It seems inevitable that the figures will rise over coming days, perhaps weeks. And conveying the ugliness without tipping into gory displays – the violence porn that is Hamas’s wont – is a difficult task.

Hamas flooded social media with gruesome images of killings and kidnappings, of dragging bodies of Jewish noncombatants through their streets. No doubt, in coming days it will fill the media with videos of hostages as the terrorists use them as bargaining chips or tools to demoralize Israelis. Their sadism seems to know no bounds; their sense of morality is nonexistent.

Meanwhile, Israelis desperate to learn the fates of such hostages are posting images of them in pleas for their safety. How can one not feel for such innocents?

Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, source: Yuval Cohen, Facebook

While most accounts so far reflect the revulsion most journalists seem to feel about the actions of these terrorists, it is likely that in coming days we will see efforts to be “balanced,” to attempt to be evenhanded. Journalists are trained, of course, to see all sides and to reflect all sides in their coverage, and that’s usually a good thing.

But this “bothsidesism” can be blind to the causes of news events and thus be misleading.

For instance, an editor at The Colorado Sun in an email to subscribers wrote: “… it’s hard not to ache for those in Israel and Palestine as we see footage of the increasing violence in the region. In this somber time as we mourn those who were killed, let’s get caught up on the Colorado news and hope for a quick resolution to the tragedy and horror half a world away.”

Aside from the saccharine sentiments and naivete revealed in hoping for a “quick resolution” to a problem over a century in the making, the “ache” for those in Israel and Palestine neatly masks the truth about who the aggressor here has been. And the reference to “increasing violence in the region” is a feeble way of making note of a mass murder by terrorists. The news outlet needs to tell it like it is, perhaps by reporting well on the reactions of Coloradans whose loved ones were killed or kidnapped by Hamas.

Yes, media must report the reactions of Palestinians, even of terrorist supporters. Yes, sympathy is appropriate in such accounts for noncombatant Gazans, many of whom have been and will now be killed thanks to the acts of the terrorists. But the perpetrators of these awful acts must be identified as the aggressors and their cruelty must be noted at each turn, even if only in the questioning of their sympathizers.

Philadelphia demonstration, source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer rightly gave prominence to the reactions of Jews to the monstrousness, even as it also covered Palestinian sympathizers. But it failed to probe and question the feelings of those sympathizers.

How could a couple hundred such sympathizers demonstrating for Palestine in Rittenhouse Square justify the murders of hundreds of innocents? Simply reporting their chants in favor of a Palestine “from the river to the sea” – a phrase used to deny Israel’s right to exist — and recording assertions by a spokesperson saying the demonstration “was about all oppressed people” was not enough. Why was she not pressed about the immorality of the attacks?

Straight and full reporting of the events will be criticized, although it’s essential. Heather Cox Richardson, a scholar and one of my favorite Substack commentators, did so in an Oct. 7 piece that simply recounted what had happened. She was criticized for that, writing in a more recent piece: “The volume of hate mail about last Saturday’s letter, pretty evenly divided between those accusing me of backing one side and those accusing me of backing the other, is about the highest I’ve ever received, but I was trying simply to present the verified events of Saturday alone, with a focus on how they affected the United States.”

As Israel moves against Gaza, the suffering of Gazans will be appropriately covered. And there will be analyses of the bloody history of both sides, including coverage of times when noncombatant Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers as they sought to root out terrorists. That is reasonable, as one shows all sides.

However, a crucial distinction must be made. The killing of civilians is not Israeli policy. Tragically, they get in the way at times. Tragically, there are mistakes – usually owned up to by Israel.

The difference is that, for Hamas, murdering Israeli civilians is an end in itself. That is what the group is about, as it seeks to drive Jews from the land. There can be no more stark illustration of that than its actions at the music festival and in the terrorizing of people in their homes, something Jews, the media and the world should never forget as this sad story unfolds.

Higher Ed Under High Stress

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Joe Weber

Schools feel the pressures of politics, economics and demographics

West Virginia University made national headlines in September when its board agreed to cut 28 academic majors (8%) and 143 faculty positions (5%). One-third of education department faculty and the entire world language department will be eliminated, according to the Associated Press.

And those trims come atop cuts made last June, when the board approved slashing 132 positions and cutting 12 graduate and doctorate programs, even while okaying a 3% tuition hike. Impassioned protests notwithstanding, the school will be a smaller place going forward and not only in terms of the 10% enrollment drop it has sustained since 2015.

Like so many other such institutions, WVU is caught in a vise that seems to make the move mandatory: declining enrollment on the demand side and deep trims in state funding on supply side. The cuts fell heavily in liberal arts, as university president E. Gordon Gee said the school needed to refocus to meet job requirements in the future. His argument: “aligning majors with future careers is a necessity in today’s world.”

This is a familiar tune that, sadly, is being replayed all over the country. Four-year state-funded schools are being squeezed on the one side by legislatures keen to cut taxes and on the other by enrollment declines driven by demographics and high tuitions and costs. Such high tabs for students often make two-year schools more attractive.

In Nebraska, for instance, the four-campus university system faces an estimated $58 million shortfall by the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year, “a gap brought on by inflation, muted revenue growth and enrollment declines,” as a report from the university’s Omaha campus explained. Times are tough for Huskers both on and off the football field.

University of Nebraska at Kearney, source: Nebraska Examiner

While officials will step up recruitment to try to boost enrollments, program cuts seem inevitable. According to the Nebraska Examiner, administrators at the university’s Kearney campus have proposed to cut 30 faculty jobs in 14 departments, eliminating the departments of geography, philosophy and theater and killing degree programs in areas including journalism and some languages. So far, it’s not clear what cuts are planned for the flagship campus in Lincoln or in Omaha.

Private schools are feeling the pressure, too. Marymount University, a small Catholic school in northern Virginia, is phasing out majors in English, history and several other areas where student demand has lagged, for example. As The Washington Post reported, art, mathematics, philosophy, secondary education, sociology, and theology and religious studies all are being chopped, along with a master’s program in English and the humanities.

Indeed, some institutions have had to close altogether. The King’s College, a Christian liberal arts school located a block from the New York Stock Exchange, this year laid off its entire faculty and halted classes after a couple years of tumult, for instance. Even support from the DeVos family (famous for former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos) couldn’t spare it from what administrators hope will be a temporary closure. To read more about it, check out the richly detailed report by journalism students there, “Inside Story of The King’s College Death Spiral of 2023.”

Distressingly, permanent school shutdowns have become common. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 296 four-year schools closed between the 2015-16 academic year and 2020-21, the most recent year with data available. That compares with just 32 in the prior five-year period. And in the latest half-decade stretch these closures included 71 nonprofit institutions, up from just 16 in the prior period, along with a bevy of for-profit schools. The situation has grown so worrisome nationally that U.S. News & World Report published a piece in 2021 counseling students on what to do if their schools shuttered.

Certainly, particular pressures on the for-profit schools account for most of the shutdowns, which included 224 such four-year schools in the latest five-year period. Headlines about so-called “predatory” institutions have hit them hard, and deservedly so. Indeed, only three four-year public universities or colleges have been forced to close since 2010-11.

Nonetheless, program trims seem all too common among both state and private schools, and they appear to be accelerating. Inside Higher Ed just reported on such cuts at the 150-year-old Christian Brothers University in Tennessee, which plans to “reallocate” its programs; at Delta State University in Mississippi, where a 48% decline in enrollment over the last 15 years is leading to plans to slash the annual $51 million budget to $40 million; and at Miami University of Ohio, which has told faculty members in 17 academic departments that they must merge, reorganize or close. The publication details still other schools in similar straits.

From a hard-headed economic viewpoint, many such retrenchments seem necessary. In the non-academic world, when demand for a product or service slows or disappears, companies drop the lines and often furlough people. Plant closings are not uncommon. So, why shouldn’t higher education behave in the same way? To keep their product lines – i.e., academic offerings – fresh, they should be able to shrink or eliminate some, and to grow others.

Indeed, one could argue that more such flexibility at universities would force them to innovate more to serve changing needs. On an individual level, professors would be required to update their curricula to keep up with the times (something we in journalism have had to do regularly as our industry changed). Even profs teaching, say, classics, history or literature would need to adapt to make their course offerings relevant to the lives of students as their lives, mores and challenges changed. Few if any teachers could simply recycle the lectures they’ve long used.

But in so many ways higher education doesn’t operate like the business world – and that’s mostly a good thing. Tenure, for instance, protects faculty members’ ability to speak and teach as they see fit (not as administrators or, worse, politicians, would dictate — Florida notwithstanding). On the flip side, state funding is notoriously subject to the whims of politicians, many of whom lately seem to be ratcheting up longstanding attacks on academia and who are all too glad to cut budgets.

Moreover, higher education in the United States long has been a magnet for foreign students. Schools in relatively few nations can match American university training, so much so that such education is one of the nation’s biggest service “exports.” That has been changing in recent years, due to Covid and the growth of solid programs in some other countries. Indeed, enrollment of foreign students peaked in the 2018-19 school year at 1.1 million, according to National Public Radio.

Happily, such enrollment seems to be clawing its way back, even as it remains prey to everything from geopolitics to fears of crime and concerns about immigration. China, for instance, has been the largest source of foreign-student enrollment and uncertainties abound about whether Chinese students will return in large numbers.

The bottom line, however, is that after decades of expansion it seems that higher education is hardly a growth industry overall anymore. Until and unless the numbers of high school students rebound and the political climates in varous states change, and until and unless universities can figure out how to deliver more for less money, dark clouds will hang over much of the sector. Painful as it is, the current shakeout seems like an unavoidable and in some ways necessary rebalancing.

The Big Picture

Monthly Archives: October 2023