Happy Constitution Day
You Might Be an Anti-Semite
Kenneth Marcus, head of the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, is the Jeff Foxworthy of the American Israelist movement. When he says, "If you do X (call Israel a racist endeavor, express sympathy for Palestinian self-determination, support BDS, and so on ad infinitum), you might be an anti-Semite," he means: "You're definitely an anti-Semite."
TGIF: Are We Sure It Can’t Happen Here?
One runs a risk whenever one cites the 20th century’s great terror states while discussing current ominous developments in the western democracies. Apparent comparisons of the United States or western and central European countries to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia will inevitably be hooted down with accusations of alarmist conspiracy-mongering and worse, shameful ahistoricity. Nevertheless, that must not keep us from noticing and pointing to contemporary events that bear an eerie resemblance, however slight, to things that went on in those totalitarian terror states. Such regimes don’t...
TGIF: Trump, Spinoza, and the Palestinian Refugees
As though we had any ground for doubt heretofore, we can now clearly see -- in light of his end to $350 million in annual humanitarian assistance to five million Palestinian refugees -- Donald Trump’s cruel and spiteful nature. It was not enough to stack the so-called peace process against the Palestinians in every possible way, not least by appointing unabashed Israeli partisans as his envoys. It was not enough to give Israel a pass when it murdered noncombatants in Gaza and practiced apartheid in the West Bank. It was not enough to rub the Palestinians’ noses in their powerlessness by...
Tyranny and Cooperation
Social phenomena -- both good and bad -- cannot happen without cooperation -- that is, without people doing things uncoerced. This is especially clear with bad phenomena. How much havoc could a Stalin, a Hitler, a Mao Zedong, or a Pol Pot wreak alone or with just a few trusted deputies? Obviously, a ruler needs many others to cooperate with him. Importantly, cooperation does not require understanding. Most people will not grasp the tyrant’s project, much less endorse it. But one way or another they will go along actively and passively (abstaining from resistance). Why? Because they have...
American Herald Tribune Interview
I was interviewed recently by the American Herald Tribune on a variety of timely subjects. Read it here.
TGIF: Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism: The Invidious Conflation
I and others have warned that enactment of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act now before Congress would threaten free speech and free inquiry on America’s college campuses and beyond. As I’ve explained, this bill incorporates a conception -- a "definition" plus potential examples -- of anti-Semitism that conflates criticism of Israel’s founding and continuing abuse of the Palestinians with anti-Semitism for the purpose inoculating Israel from such criticism. Anti-Zionist Jews and others have objected to this conflation for over 70 years. What makes us so confident in predicting a threat to free...
Read My Books
Podcasts
