Speech, Not Violence

With her avid, even emotional, interrogation of the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania, it was easy to mistake US Representative Elise Stefanik for an ardent foe of anti-Semitism. However

For those who see Elise Stefanik as sympathetic to Jews, remember she avidly supports the guy who dined with this murderous Nazi, and said not one word of disapproval or protest. https://t.co/2LiJfiuEft

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) December 12, 2023

 

In May of 2022, Annie Karni of The New York Times wrote

Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump White House official who now hosts an influential podcast on the right, said Ms. Stefanik could not care less about criticism from the left, using an expletive for emphasis.

What keeps her up at night, Mr. Bannon said, is any threat from the right.

“She’s in a competition right now with Representative Jim Banks about who is going farther right,” he said, referring to the Indiana Republican and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, who has also refashioned himself from a movement conservative into a Trump acolyte as he seeks to rise in power in Washington.

Some of Ms. Stefanik’s recent moves, people close to her said, appeared to be motivated by her internal competition with Mr. Banks.

Attacking top leaders of prominent institutions of higher learning can only ingratiate Stefanik with the hard right she has been courting, as well as with the disgraced ex-President whom she prays selects her as a running mate.  

Yet the cause of ending- or of even examining- the culture and circumstances on college campuses which have led to the toleration of anti-Semitism which appeared to enervate Stefanski was not well served by her performance in committee.  

In July of 2017, in response to a movement which has only grown since, social psychologist Jonathan Rauch and FIRE president and CEO Greg Lukianoff noted

Aggressive and even violent protests have erupted at some of the country’s most progressive schools, such as Berkeley, Middlebury College, and Evergreen State College. Are these schools brutal and toxic environments for members of various identity groups? Or has a set of new ideas on campus taught students to see oppression and violence wherever they look? If students are repeatedly told that numerical disparities are proof of systemic discrimination, and a clumsy or insensitive question is an act of aggression (a “microaggression”), and words are sometimes acts of violence that will shorten your life, then it begins to make sense that they would worry about their safety, chronically, even within some of America’s most welcoming and protective institutions.

One of the ideas which concerned Rauch and Lukianoff may have been, presumably inadvertently, promoted by Stefanik's condemnation of calls on campuses for "genocide" which have never been specifically made. They note

Of all the ideas percolating on college campuses these days, the most dangerous one might be that speech is sometimes violence. We’re not talking about verbal threats of violence, which are used to coerce and intimidate, and which are illegal and not protected by the First Amendment. We’re talking about speech that is deemed by members of an identity group to be critical of the group, or speech that is otherwise upsetting to members of the group. This is the kind of speech that many students today refer to as a form of violence.

They explain that "the idea that speech is violence is so dangerous" because 

It tells the members of a generation already beset by anxiety and depression that the world is a far more violent and threatening place than it really is. It tells them that words, ideas, and speakers can literally kill them. Even worse: At a time of rapidly rising political polarization in America, it helps a small subset of that generation justify political violence.

Stefanik might have assisted the consideration of speech codes had she been intellectually honest. Rather than condemning calls for genocide- which have largely, if not completely, been absent- she could have invoked the danger inherent in the common chant of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," a call for the elimination of the Jewish state of Israel.

But she did not. Similarly, in covering the testimony of the three college presidents, the media has obsessed over how badly the college presidents did at what the news media implicitly views as a performance, a failed one. Instead, newspersons should have focused on the controversial and debatable issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and especially upon the harmful impulse of equating speech with violence. It turns out that neither they nor Representative Elise Stefanik was interested in shedding light on a very important topic.

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Foes of Higher Education

In the wake of the politically disastrous appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce by presidents of three elite universities and the resignation of one of the leaders FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) is alarmed (pun intended). It notes

New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul sent a letter warning the presidents of colleges and universities in New York that failing to discipline students for “calling for the genocide of any group of people” would violate both state and federal law. The governor promised “aggressive enforcement action” against any institution failing to prohibit and punish such speech.

Colleges and universities can and should punish “calls for genocide” when such speech falls into one of the narrowly defined categories of unprotected speech, including true threats, incitement, and discriminatory harassment. But broad, vague bans on “calls for genocide,” absent more, would result in the censorship of protected expression.

That's an accurate understanding of the Constitution, corroborating testimony of those three presidents, each of whom cited the legal importance of "context." It was also irrelevant to Elise Stefanik, who got a great soundbite out of her questioning. Characteristically succumbing to the temptation to slam Israel and to invoke race, Will Bunch remarked

How much of this is about antisemitism, and how much of this is about something else? — such as the fact that the college presidents who testified on Capitol Hill don’t look like the 300 years of school leaders who came before them. Bill Ackman, billionaire hedge fund manager and deeply disgruntled Harvard alum and donor, said the quiet part out loud last week when he made the repulsive allegation in a tweet that his alma mater’s first Black president — a child of Haitian immigrants, an award-winning scholar — was only hired to satisfy diversity goals.

Stefanik's sincerity is questionable when

her passion as an anti-antisemitism crusader was nowhere to be seen recently when her conservative allies were out in the schools banning books like The Diary of Anne Frank. Far worse, Stefanik, in 2022 campaign ads, seemed to be endorsing the racist “great replacement theory” that mass immigration is a liberal plot, using inflammatory rhetoric about a scheme to “overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”

Only Lisa McGill of the University of Pennsylvania- one of the two administrators who is white- has been forced into retirement as of the time of this post (minutes after the end of Sunday Night Football). Race may have played a role but Bunch is closer to discerning the motivation of GOP members of Congress when he notes

And the likes of Ackman, Stefanik and their allies won’t stop at reversing a half-century of diversity on campus — not when their bigger strategic goal of weakening the already tottering American way of higher education suddenly seems within reach. Last week, Sen. J.D. Vance, the billionaire-backed Ohioan, tweeted that “if universities keep pushing racial hatred, euphemistically called DEI, we need to look at their funding.” In the swirling vortex that led to Magill’s resignation, these calls for financial retribution will accelerate — and students will suffer.

We need to look at their funding. Republicans aren't fond of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the tolerance of major universities toward anti-Semitism on campus compared to the the slightest affront to groups designated as "marginalized" is striking. However, prominent Republicans are not primarily interested in ending DEI or antagonism to Jews. For the most part, these issues are subterfuges, intended to divert attention from the GOP's goal to undermine and weaken colleges, especially the most eminent institutions of higher education.

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The Atlantic’s David Frum reminds us that on Tuesday

 the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT were caught in a trap in front of a House committee. Each was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated rules at their university. Each president refused to answer directly, insisting that everything depends on context.

The reason 3 university presidents had trouble with the genocide question is not because of an over-zealous commitment to free speech. Universities punish people all the time for First Amendment protected speech. They had trouble because anti-Jewishness is baked into the ideology… https://t.co/gp7FpRoM5j

— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 7, 2023

 

By contrast, The View's Sunny Hostin (as seen at 5:12 below) contends "the codes of conduct must adhere to the law," then interrupting a co-host, "no, it really can't go against the Constitution of the United States."

                

A lawyer, Hostin is a master manipulator (not liar) of the truth, hence neglecting to explain- as does The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)-

With limited, narrowly defined exceptions, the First Amendment prohibits the government—including governmental entities such as state universities—from restricting freedom of speech. A good rule of thumb is that if a state law would be declared unconstitutional for violating the First Amendment, a similar regulation at a state college or university is likewise unconstitutional.

However

The guarantees of the First Amendment generally do not apply to students at private colleges because the First Amendment regulates only government conduct. Moreover, although acceptance of federal funding does confer some obligations upon private colleges (such as compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws), compliance with the First Amendment is not one of them.

 This does not mean, however, that students and faculty at all private schools are not entitled to free expression. In fact, most private universities explicitly promise freedom of speech and academic freedom in their official policy materials.

Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology all are elite private universities, hence are not subject to the same standards of free expression as are public colleges.  Thus, in a strictly technical (and lawyerly) sense, the codes of conduct are Constitutional. However, as Hostin undoubtedly knows (and very likely approves of)

On university campuses and in many other places, anti-Semitic speech regularly crosses the line into threats, intimidation, and outright violence against Jews. University rules and local laws are intentionally violated because everybody knows that the rules and laws are selectively enforced. 

This is why Representative Elise Stefanik was wrong in this portion (at :56 of the video below) of her exchange when interviewing Harvard president on Tuesday

Stefanik: Calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard's code of conduct, correct? 

Gay: Again, it depends on the context. 

Stefanik: It does not depend on the context. The answer is "yes" and this is why you should resign.

The context is that standards change depending on whose ox is being gored.  Brett Stephens recognizes

But the problem with their testimonies was not fundamentally about calls for genocide or free speech. It was about double standards — itself a form of antisemitism, but one that can be harder to detect.

The double standard is this: Colleges and universities that for years have been notably censorious when it comes to free speech seem to have suddenly discovered its virtues only now, when the speech in question tends to be especially hurtful to Jews.

Or as Frum would put it, "anti-Jewishness is baked into the ideology." Hence

The word for all this is hypocrisy. Gay, Kornbluth and Magill may not be personally to blame for it, because they only recently took over the helm of their schools. But there’s an institutional hypocrisy that they at least have a duty to acknowledge.

They also must decide: If they are seriously committed to free speech — as I believe they should be — then that has to go for all controversial views, including when it comes to incendiary issues about race and gender, as well as when it comes to hiring or recruiting an ideologically diverse faculty and student body. If, on the other hand, they want to continue to forbid and punish speech they find offensive, then the rule must apply for all offensive speech, including calls to wipe out Israel or support homicidal resistance.

Republican and Democratic politicians of either Jewish or Christian faith have emphasized the insufficient sensitivity toward anti-Semitism of the three university presidents. But given the importance of free expression and the complexity of university codes of conduct, an argument over "context" and whether the college president should resign is peripheral.. 

Hostin disingenuously remarks ".... and what this entire hearing should have been about it free speech." It's a safe bet that Hostin would have been appalled if the hearing actually had been about how the principle of free speech is applied unevenly on college campuses. In The Atlantic's note to Frum's article,  "progressives who once argued that free speech is violence now claim that violence is free speech."

In his classic Animal Farm, George Orwell cynically wrote "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others."  The preference of colleges for groups perceived as marginalized over other groups has now been fully exposed.   Whether landing on the side of free expression or of crushing offensive speech, they should apply equally to all.

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The Real Person of the Year

They've done it again, as expected. Wikipedia explains

Time's Person of the Year for 2001, immediately following the September 11 attacks, was Rudy Giuliani, who served as mayor of New York City during that time. The stated rules of selection—the individual or group of individuals who have had the bigger influence on the year's events—made Osama bin Laden the more likely choice that year; however, Giuliani was selected for symbolizing the American response to the attacks, in the same way that Albert Einstein was selected Person of the Century for representing a century of scientific exploration and wonder instead of Adolf Hitler, who was arguably a stronger candidate.The selections were ultimately based on, as the magazine describes it, "who they believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most."

The ironic aspect of Giuliani as Person of the Year as that he did deserve it- but not in 2001, rather in 2020, when he appears to have played a major role in the election of Donald Trump. He received the award in 2001 in large part because of the mistaken notion- assumption- that the New York mayor reacted valiantly to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, instead of having laid the seeds (here and here) of a terrible response. 

Giuliani's selection in 2001 reflected the (false) representation of the Mayor as an heroic figure. Elon Musk was selected in 2021 as Time swooned he "has spent a lifetime defying the haters; now, it seems, he's finally in position to put them in their place. As the overworked saying has it, you can't buy publicity like that. 

In 2023, the publication lucked out. Vladimir Zelenskyy was (still is) both an influential and courageous leader. In 2023, there was no such option, with the finalists being Hollywood strikers and Trump prosecutors, who are not one individual but a collection; Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, who were no more influential this year than in years past or in years to come; Sam Altman, who left one employer for another, then returned, which is not unprecedented; Barbie, not a real person, nonetheless glorifying anorexia; King Charles III, who had no influence upon anyone- and what's up with the love of royalty we rejected 250+ years ago, anyway?

And then there was Fed chairperson Jerome Powell, tasked with reducing inflation, preferably without sparking recession. So far, so good but we don't know where it goes from here, and no one cares about Jerome Powell. 

Then, to no one's surprise, TIME selected Taylor Swift, because of course it did, and who would look better on its cover- Taylor Swift or Jerome Powell?

Nevertheless, there would have been a better- meaning "more honest"- choice than Taylor Swift or any of the others.

He was released from an Israeli prison in 2011 with 1,000+ other Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, In Tel Aviv's fiendish and downright devilish scheme to cover up its genocidal plot to exterminate Palestinians. My choice, then, would have been Tahya Sinwar, the ex-inmate largely unknown but both extremely influential and quite popular. .On November 3, NPR noted

The deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, dragging Israeli hostages back to Gaza, and high-stakes negotiations for their release could not have happened without the approval of one secretive man.

 Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, is widely believed to have helped mastermind the unprecedented Hamas attack that changed the course of Israeli-Palestinian history.

 He spent more than two decades behind bars in Israel, before being freed 12 years ago in a hostage ransom deal his brother helped negotiate. In early October, Sinwar outsmarted Israel with the same hostage-taking tactic — resulting in Israel's deadliest day on record.

Sinwar will likely keep holding onto Israeli captive soldiers as a bargaining chip for his bigger goal: to secure the release of all Palestinian prisoners. Israel currently jails 7,677 Palestinian "security" inmates, according to the Israeli legal aid group HaMoke. Sinwar will likely keep holding onto Israeli captive soldiers as a bargaining chip for his bigger goal: to secure the release of all Palestinian prisoners. Israel currently jails 7,677 Palestinian "security" inmates, according to the Israeli legal aid group HaMoked.

And now

"We are ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for all prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance," Sinwar said in an Oct. 28 statement.

 Opinion polls in October showed large Israeli support for such a comprehensive prisoner swap.

"When they end the war, they will make negotiations to release all the prisoners, and then it will be the biggest picture of victory in Palestinian history," says Mansour, Sinwar's former prison mate.

If Israel is foolish enough to release all the prisoners, it will be a big moment and one of tis biggest mistakes since the Jewish state released the more than 1,000 prisoners, including the immensely successful Sinwar, in 2011.

Already, though, the war engineered by the man known as the "butcher of Khan Younis (a reference to where he was reared in southern Gaza), has resulted in the violent deaths of several thousand Gazans, in addition to the slaughter and kidnapping of over 1,000 Israelis. He has exposed Israel as the only nation that has to defend itself for defending itself. In response, one research group has estimated that there were approximately 1869 "pro-Palestinian" protests in the USA alone from 10/7/2023-11/23/23. There have been similar events in dozens of nations.

That is a heady accomplishment, one larger in impact than even Taylor Swift or Barbie. The Butcher has made popular the torture and mass murder by militant and extreme fundamentalist Muslims against Jews.. Tahya Sinwar has made terrorism cool again.

.

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Surprised, Not Surprised

CBS News- Philadelphia has reported

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protestors made their way through the streets of Philadelphia Sunday night as they demanded a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. What they did outside of a Jewish restaurant drew harsh criticism from local and federal leaders....

The pro-Palestinian protestors gathered in Rittenhouse Square and marched through the area and University City, including the University of Pennsylvania campus.

In a Facebook post, the Philadelphia Free Palestine Coalition had urged supporters to "flood the streets" Sunday night.

Video posted on social media showed demonstrators also made their way to Samson Street, where they gathered outside the Jewish restaurant Goldie, one of several restaurants in the city owned by Philadelphia-based Israeli chef Michael Solomonov.

The group of protestors is accused of shouting antisemitic remarks, and stickers with pro-Palestinian slogans were reportedly left on the doors, though when CBS Philadelphia checked back early Monday morning they had been removed.

 

It figures that some people actually would defend this. Get a load of one such individual, who allegedly has over 45,000 followers:

On what basis are people including "Jewish" here? He's Israeli, the restaurants are branded as Israeli, he's used them to fundraise for Israel, it's about Israel. Where does Jewish come in? https://t.co/h4eMo4Hrch

— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) December 4, 2023

Protest leaders had learned on October 12 that

Philadelphia-based Israeli Chef Michael Solomonov is helping to raise money for those injured in the war in Israel. Solomnov owns four restaurants in Philadelphia under the banner CookNSolo, including Zahav, Goldie, Laser Wolf and K'Far Cafe. Zahav was awarded the James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Restaurant" in 2019.

Solomonov said he would be donating 100% of all sales Thursday to Friends of United Hatzalah. The nonprofit emergency medical service responds to emergencies across Israel free of charge.

This seems to be confirmed by Wikipedia, which indicates that United Hatzalah's "mission is to provide immediate medical intervention during the critical window between the onset of an emergency and the arrival of traditional assistance."

This is what this character Harris darkly suggested is activity to fundraise for Israel, it's about Israel." It's not about "genocide," that which is not being committed by Israel. It's about providing medical service. 

Those of us old enough remember a time when the left supported health care. There is little attention paid to that now. And when it is Israelis whom a wealthy restaurateur wants to provide emergency medical care to, it is "genocide."

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Commonality of Principles

In a world increasingly populated bt individuals such as Geert Wilders and Rashida Tlaib, there is nonetheless some good sense.

An ardent supporter of Brexit, Wilders has hinted at taking the Netherlands out of the European Union but is known primarily as a foe of immigration.. A member of the Dutch legislature, Wilders leads the country's Party for Freedom (PVV), which recently picked up many seats in the Dutch legislature. Consequently, he will lead talks to form the next coalition government and possibly become Prime Minister.

At 7:08 into the Overtime segment of Friday evening's "Real Time with Bill Maher," the host read the question "is the rise of anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders... a warning to liberals in America that they need to take our immigration crisis more seriously?'

Though the obvious and simple answer is "yes," Maher explained

So, if you don't follow the story, Geert Wilders has been running forever in Holland. Of course, the New York Times calls him a far-rightist- they call these people, I mean Meloni in Italy is another one,Viktor Orban is kind of a far rightist in Hungary. But I believe some of them are just- Brexit in England was a part of this- people are feeling, uh, they are not welcome in their own home because of the kind of immigration that these people are fighting against. So-

Guest panelist Dave Rubin then contended

Most of these people are not far right by- in that they're racists. I actually met with Orban in Budapest and I talked to him for a little while and all he kept saying was (imitates Hungarian accent, whatever that is) "I love Hungary, that's all. I love my people. I love my country, that's it. I don't know what kind of accent that was but that basically.... All of these guys- Geert Wilders wants Holland to be for the Dutch, right? That's what he wants. When we see- that's racist, that's what they would tell you, right? 

Then Maher finds the sweet spot between xenophobia and embrace of open borders, between Wilders and the Tlaib crowd, as he remarks (emphasis his)

I was just going to say "Dutch for the Dutch." Uh, I would amend that if it was me- Dutch values. You don't have to be actually Dutch, you don't have to be white. That's what I think is great about America- the ideas. As long as you subscribe to our idea, which again, to your point, and what I was saying at the end of the show, we're not a Christian nation. This is a country where we have the First Amendment, then everybody should be welcomed.

 

The First Amendment doesn't apply to immigration but it does pertain both to freedom of religion, the right to worship as one pleases in a nation with a wall of separation between church and state.   Maher was referring to comments at the end of the show in which he noted the Constitutional admonition that  "no law respecting an establishment of religion" should be enacted and that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office."

Nevertheless, in a larger sense, the call to acceptance by Americans of an American set of values is based in part to what George Orwell termed the "Judeo-Christian scheme of morals." It is vague and flexible but nonetheless real, and (absent to a religious test) should be fundamental to any consideration of immigration policy in the USA.

Notwithstanding the temptation of having "Dutch for the Dutch," an individual need not be Dutch or white but should accept such traditionally liberal values as freedom of expression, religious liberty, and pluralism, which are not universal. Nor should there be America for Americans," especially because there is no one American ethnicity (And yet, "Palestinian" is assumed to be an ethnicity, wherein it becomes conflated with religion.)

Last night, as he is wont to do, Maher criticized the impact of religion and religious thought upon government and politics. However, he remained faithful to the notion that a nation is most likely to survive when its citizens of whatever religious faith "subscribe to our idea." The United States of America, as Joe Biden has put it, is an "idea."  Thus are many other nations, including the Netherlands, which will prosper if its scheme of values prevails.

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Martydom

These guys may be correct about one of these things:

One of the more high profile supporters of Ilhan Omar’s primary opponent shares his thoughts on Palestinian children: https://t.co/dIIVPXqk0j

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 30, 2023

It is not "incredibly racist," except in the literal, unintended sense. It is not credibly racist because it is not racist.  Minnesota State Senator Ron Lutz did not imply the innate inferiority of any race and did not even characterize individuals as a race, but as inhabitants of Palestine.

It is not why six-year-old children are killed. Israel cares little about what one state senator says. The Israeli counterattack against Hamas/Gaza was a response to a brutal and sadistic attack upon its innocent civilians.

It is not "why college kids are shot."  The assailant who shot Tahseen Ali Ahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Hisham Awartani probably did so because, wearing kaffiyehs and reported speaking "a combination of Arabic and English," they did appear to be Arabs. 

However, that has not yet been confirmed- and the crime was committed on November 25, several days before the state senator spoke. If old enough, you remember a time that voices on the left were concerned about firearms being in the hands of individuals who should not possess them. However, that was before, or in the absence of, the left's obsession with race reared its ugly head. This may have been a hate crime, in contrast,, I suppose, to becoming victims of gun violence in a "love crime."

Yet, it is not clear "Palestinian youth (typically) dream of the opportunity to achieve glory and martyrdom by killing as many Jews as possible."  Last December, in the midst of violence between Israeli soldiers and Arab/Muslim residents of the West Bank resulting from terrorist attacks by "Palestinian assailants"

The high Palestinian death toll has cast a fresh light on the practice of armed and political Palestinian groups claiming as members or publicly honoring all those killed by Israel, one that blurs the distinction between civilians and armed fighters. It is a tradition that some families object to, saying they don’t want loved ones used for political purposes.

Mr. Abu Naise said he raised his two sons to stay away from the armed Palestinian resistance groups fighting against Israeli occupation. His eldest, Muhammad, spent his days working as a civil servant in city government and nights as a barista, to support his wife and two young children.

Now he was dead, killed on the street by Israeli troops conducting a raid in Jenin, according to the Palestinian authorities.

“The Israeli army doesn’t distinguish between civilian or fighter. This year we’re all at risk of a bullet striking us,” Mr. Abu Naise said.

Every Palestinian killed by Israel is considered a martyr by the community, reflecting a widespread view that each Palestinian is part of a resistance to decades of occupation by Israel. But the rush by armed groups to claim those killed as martyrs worries some Palestinians, who feel it is being used by Israel to justify raids even when civilians are the victims.

It seems to be a mixed bag. At least as of late last year, some Arabs of the occupied territories did view dead terrorists as martyrs; others didn't, or at least believed they should not be publicly proclaimed as martyrs. The Times did not explore whether youth were being educated to accept the "widespread view," preferring its readers to assume that it is due to "a resistance to decades of occupation by Israel."

More significantly, no mention was made of "Islam" or "Muslim" or even "religion," as if martyrdom were common in bloody confrontations throughout the world. The media clearly is unwilling even to consider the possibility that the religious faith, properly interpreted or instead wildly distorted, by Muslims, may play a role. Besides obscuring a possible contributing factor to the ongoing conflict, it robs the public of the opportunity to assess the impact of legitimate religious belief versus religious extremism.

Ironically, this unwillingness by reporters sympathetic to terrorists (as responding to ongoing occupation) bears a resemblance to the broad stroke cast by the Minnesota state senator in arguing "Palestinian youth dream of the opportunity to achieve glory and martyrdom by killing as many Jews as possible."  We don't know whether Palestinian youth are taught that and if so, whether in Gaza, the West Bank or elsewhere. Nor do we know the extent to which religious fanaticism contributes to the murderous intent. 

Instead, we are left with a Midwestern politician implying that all Palestinian youth are the same, while much of the left believes any suggestion of any blame toward Palestinians is inherently racist. It's a sad state of affairs. However, unlike some of his critics, at least Ron Lutz believes that, if true, children being taught to hate Jews and to kill them is an actual bad thing..

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