The situation at @Columbia is even worse than you think. Joseph Massad isn't teaching a course on just Zionism. The course is on "The History of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism."
The infuriating facts you should know: 🧵 The Jewish Enlightenment is a 19thC Euro/Ashkenazi phenomenon. Massad has no training in Jewish history and doesn't read Yiddish. Even if he weren't a raging antisemite, he's not qualified to teach a course on history he's never studied and literature he can't read. So why is he?

What’s happening in Syria and Lebanon is actually the default setting for most of the MidEast. It’s either chaos or empire there. The imposed nation state borders of the past century will be/are carved up by local factions, militias, and religio-ethnic groups, along w/ strong 🧵 adjacent states such as Turkey, Iran, Israel.

What the Arab Spring ultimately revealed is that the post-colonial states are failures, made of factions who hate each other and don’t want to live together. Only the power of empires (Ottoman, British, French, Persian) or dictators

9/11 was my 2nd week as exec dir of @RutgersHillel, at @RutgersU, the State U of NJ. The next day flyers went up all over campus inviting people to a special meeting of the Muslim Students Assoc on 9/13. Of course I went. Here is what I saw and heard. It haunts me to this day. 🧵 I thought half the campus would be there. Who wouldn't want to hear what the MSA had to say 2 days after Al-Qaeda killed 3,000 Americans? We could smell the smoke from Ground Zero on campus. But I was the only visibly non-Muslim person in a crowd of 200+. Wearing my kipah. ✡️

Proving there is nothing new under the sun, let's see how Dostoevsky, the brilliant Russian novelist, predicted today's world via the character Pytor Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a socialist revolutionary in his book "Demons."
Read to the end. You'll like this. 🧵 "The first thing is to lower the level of education, science, and accomplishment. A high level of science and accomplishment is accessible only to people of high ability and there’s no need for high ability! People of high ability can’t help but be despots and have always

Great article on The Roots of Progressive Radicalism by @jonkay. I'm especially intrigued by Musa Al-Gharbi's book on how the “woke” elite use the language of social justice to gain power and status—without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged.🧵
quillette.com/2024/06/25/the… Al-Gharbi's thesis: Patterns of elite political radicalisation are recurrent in the West esp during times of underemployment among the well-educated. So they substitute what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called "symbolic capital" for the real capital they want but lack.

The fanatical attachment of so many in the West to extremist Islam’s jihadi ideology, manifested as "Palestinianism," is one of the confounding dynamics of our age. Yet it is explained clearly by the philosopher Eric Hoffer in his 1951 book The True Believer.🧵 Hoffer posits that fanatical movements (religious, social, or national) arise when large numbers of people believe their own individual lives to be worthless - or worse. So they join movements demanding radical change. But the underlying psychological cause is very different.

The presidents of @RutgersU, @NorthwesternU & @UCLA are facing a Congressional hearing today regarding their ailure to respond to #antisemitism on campus. They are not acquitting themselves well. My personal dealings with Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway and his testimony: 🧵 @RutgersU Pres. Jonathan Holloway was asked "Do you think Israel's government is genocidal?"

His response "I don't have an opinion on that phrase."

Asked again, he responded "I believe Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself."

Asked again, "Do you think Israel's

Antisemites corrupt everyone. Salma Hamamy, pres of the main pro-Palestinian group at @UMich posted on social-media “Until my last breath I will utter death to every single individual who supports the Zionist state. Death and worse.” So how is such a student treated?🧵1/4 She's among @UMich most honored students.

~Recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award for students “who best exemplify the leadership and extraordinary vision" of MLK. No joke.

~ @umichdaily_ endorsed her for student council president.
michigandaily.com/news/student-g…

🧵in depth analysis of Gaza tunnels by chair of urban war studies at West Point. Summary:

• Hamas does not have military sites separate from civilian sites
• scope of tunnels far greater than was known
• Hamas strategy is political not military

mwi.westpoint.edu/gazas-undergro… Hamas has built a tunnel network to gain not just a military advantage, but a political advantage. Hamas weaved its vast tunnel networks into the society on the surface. Destroying the tunnels is virtually impossible without adversely impacting the population living in Gaza.

Israel journalist @Roi_Yanovsky just published an amazing piece in Hebrew about what Gaza is REALLY like, based on his personal observations there. Here is an English translation that you NEED to read🧵

100 reserve days officially ended yesterday. Some initial insights: 1. Gaza is seen as a backward area, the "most densely populated in the world" which has been under Israeli "siege" for years. There is no bigger lie than this. Gaza is a modern, beautiful, developed city, with large modern houses, wide boulevards, public spaces, a promenade

I found an email dated 2/2/22, that I sent to my daughter when she was visiting a concentration camp site in Poland. Sadly, after the 10/7 Massacre, every word rings true. 🧵 "The world we live in has barely changed. There are still MILLIONS of people in the world who want to kill us. Given the opportunity they’d kill you, your friends, your brothers and sister, me, mommy. Today. Right now. The only thing that stops them is the will of Gd and the IDF.

Today is the 5th/6th of the Hebrew month of Av. #OTD 82 years ago, the Jews of my family’s ancestral shtetl of Vileyka were liquidated by the Nazis - the entire Jewish population was murdered. Here is their story: Multiple branches of my family came from 3 neighboring shtetls in what is now Belarus. The most prominent was Vileyka. We trace our family there back to 1766. Thanks to persecution and pogroms by the Russians, my immediate ancestors all fled to America 1890-1917. But not all.

The return of Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem is one of the most unlikely events in the history of the human experience. But it happened 56 yrs ago this week. It’s hard to explain just how momentous an event this is - but I’m going to try. 🧵 In June 1967 Jewish sovereignty was returned to Jerusalem for the first time since the 2nd Jewish Commonwealth was conquered by Rome in 70 CE. During 2,000 yrs of exile Jews wrote countless psalms, poems, and songs about Jerusalem, from King David to Judah Halevi to Matisyahu.

#OnThisDay in 1972, Palestinian terrorists mutilated and murdered 11 Israeli athletes during the Olympics in Munich, Germany. The involvement of the German government and current Palestinian leadership needs to be known and shared. THREAD Future Palestinian President Yasir Arafat approved the operation and current President Mahmoud Abbas financed it. German neo-Nazi groups assisted. In 2019, Abbas dedicated a new university building in honor of the mastermind of the operation, Khalil Al-Wazir Abu Jihad.

Analyzing the current wave of terror attacks in Israel - it’s all about Iran.
THREAD
jpost.com/breaking-news/… Most of the recent terror attacks have been by Palestinians associated with ISIS or other Muslim religious extremists. People easily manipulated and paid to martyr themselves. So who’s doing the manipulating and paying?

Jews worldwide are under attack as anti-Israel protests become mini-pogroms, with synagogues vandalized and Jews assaulted. This happens whenever Israel is being targeted - Jews everywhere become a target, too. If anti-Zionism is NOT antisemitism, why is this? THREAD A few examples from around the world. First, Britain.
A rabbi in London was beaten following a protest at which the mob shouted "Fuck the Jews, Rape their Daughters!"
metro.co.uk/2021/05/16/con…

Gotta love @RepRitchie, a progressive voice who stands by Israel! Young, Progressive, Democrat, Puerto Rican, Gay, and an unwavering supporter of Israel.
A THREAD that will inspire you!
bariweiss.substack.com/p/can-you-be-a… "Not only is Israel under siege from rocket fire, but the truth itself is under siege. There’s been an ongoing propaganda war and the narrative that is dominating is one that attempts to normalize Hamas and delegitimize Israel."

The catalyst for the current violence is not really about Israelis and Palestinians. It's a Civil War by Proxy between Hamas and the PA, replacing the cancelled election. Each side competes for 'legitimacy' by demonstrating who can organize more violence against Israelis.
THREAD Palestinian Pres. Abbas is in the 16th yr of a 4yr term. He called elections for April and his main campaign strategy was to incite small scale violence against Jews, a way of proving he is as committed to 'resistance' as his arch political opponents, the terror group Hamas.

This a disturbing story that needs to be remembered and told. #OnThisDay 10 yrs ago, 2 cousins, Amjad Mahmad Awad (18) & Hakim Mazen Awad (17) murdered an entire Jewish family in their beds. The Palestinian Authority has paid them over $200k to date as a reward. THREAD They stabbed to death a mother Ruth (35), father Udi (36), 2 young boys Yoav (11) & Elad (4) and decapitated a baby girl, Hadas (3 months).

The Fogel Family Massacre was so horrific even Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmoud Abbas and PM Salam Fayyad condemned the attack.

Some post-#Chanukah history - The Menorah, Rome, and Jerusalem.
THREAD The Arch of Titus in Rome was erected in 82 CE to celebrate Roman Emperor Titus' victory over the Jews in Judea, including the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The captive Jews are shown carrying sacred Temple vessels, including the golden menorah, away from Jerusalem to Rome.

Yes, Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. But Al-Qaeda did not act alone. US Federal Courts have repeatedly held that IRAN and its proxy HEZBOLLAH were directly and materially responsible for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Here is the rest of the story.

THREAD #NeverForget The 9/11 Commission report stated “there is strong evidence" implicating Iran and Hezbollah, requiring "further investigation by the US government.” Based on that, in 2004 hundreds of 9/11 families brought the case "Havlish et al v. Bin-Laden, Iran, et al" to Federal court.