I got into it last night on Special Report with Harold Ford about the crisis on campuses, and I’ll be back on again tonight — in the intervening time, the protesters at Columbia University (now in week three of their demands to divest from Israeli investment and money) decided to violently invade and take over Hamilton Hall.
The “big thing” Harold mentioned that these students want is the destruction of Israel as a nation state, and in the interim, they essentially want the same thing Tony Blinken does — a ceasefire that only benefits the interests of Hamas. So the declarations and attempts at negotiation from campus leadership are ultimately irrelevant to the moment. Why would the protesters stop when their strategy is obviously working?
More on the Columbia situation here:
Anti-Israel student activist group Columbia Apartheid Divest celebrated the rioting at Hamilton Hall as a necessary escalation to the protest movement. The group renamed the building and said an “autonomous group reclaimed” the building.
“As members of the imperial core, the least we can do is pressure the university to divest. Open the gates, end the occupation, and welcome the free movement of all people, from Palestinians to our neighbors in Harlem; from the river to the sea,” the left-wing activists said.
The protesters claim to be demonstrating against Columbia’s financial relationship with companies doing business in Israel and U.S. support for Israel’s ongoing war effort against Hamas, launched after the terrorist group’s mass civilian slaughter on October 7. Khymani James, one of the movement’s lead organizers, was banned from campus last week after unearthed video footage came to light where he said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”
Columbia leadership on Monday night indicated the student demonstrators will begin to receive suspensions after they ignored a deadline to disband the anti-Israel encampment formed earlier this month. Ahead of the 2 p.m. deadline given by the university, activists urged supporters to flood onto campus and prevent the university from being able to clear them out.
A rather different approach was deployed in Florida:
“This is not complicated: The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children - they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences. For many days, we have patiently told protesters - many of whom are outside agitators - that they were able to exercise their right to free speech and free assembly. And we also told them that clearly prohibited activities would result in a trespassing order from UPD (barring them from all university properties for three years) and an interim suspension from the university. For days UPD patiently and consistently reiterated the rules. Today, individuals who refused to comply were arrested after UPD gave multiple warnings and multiple opportunities to comply.”
The Middle East Trap
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is barnstorming the region to develop plans for a cease-fire and for postwar reconstruction in Gaza. Protests and pro-Hamas encampments at college campuses from Harvard to the University of Southern California are deepening divisions in the Democratic Party and dominating headlines at home. A recent CNN poll found that only 28% of respondents approved of President Biden’s handling of the Gaza war, with 81% of those under 35 disapproving.
Mr. Biden is caught between the demands of American national interests during a global crisis and the demands of a vocal and visible part of his political coalition in the runup to a close election. Internationally, the U.S. must resist Iran’s drive to disrupt what is left of the post-Cold War order in the Middle East. Failure to stabilize the region could lead in the short term to inflationary gasoline price spikes, and in the longer term could seriously weaken Washington’s position in the contest with the revisionist powers seeking to overturn the American order worldwide.
Domestically, the administration needs to keep tensions over Middle East policy from splitting the Democratic Party. This won’t be easy. Many of Hamas’s most passionate campus supporters believe that the organization wants to establish a secular Palestinian state. They also believe that Israeli Jews are European immigrants displacing an indigenous population—white settlers who should go home to Poland.
They think that Israel survives only because America supports it and that an American president who “gets serious” with Israel can make it do almost anything he wants. They see Hamas as part of a global coalition of “progressive” movements advancing causes such as climate change, democracy and LGBTQ rights against global capitalism. People who share these perceptions can organize a march or build an encampment, but the wisest heads in the world all working together couldn’t craft a feasible diplomatic strategy based on such an incoherent and unrealistic view of the world.
Many of Mr. Biden’s serious Democratic critics don’t merely oppose American strategic cooperation with Israel. They resent the administration’s close alliance with authoritarian governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood, the transnational Islamist movement to which Hamas belongs, and blame the U.S. for the continuing frustration of “democratic Islamists” across the region following the Arab Spring. This group, which includes many American Muslims seeking to reconcile their faith with democratic values, has been pulled sharply to the left by their empathy for the Gazan victims of the war.
The administration’s plan to end the war and move toward a Palestinian state involves assembling a structure including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. to create and support a new Palestinian governance structure. This Palestinian body, no more democratic perhaps than its Arab allies, would align with its sponsors and move toward peace with Israel.
This may well be the best way forward from the standpoint of American interests. In my view it is significantly better for the Palestinians than anything else on offer. But the approach will require major investments of American diplomatic capital and resources. And the strategy won’t quiet the administration’s domestic critics.
Many Palestinian-Americans, Muslim Brotherhood supporters, campaigners for Arab democracy and human-rights activists would denounce an approach that further entrenches Middle East authoritarianism. Many of Israel’s friends in the Democratic Party would also resent pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state so soon after the horrors of Oct. 7.
Congress Squabbles Over Anti-Semitism
House Democrats furious at Mike Johnson over anti-Semitism vote.
The House is set to vote Wednesday on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism in its enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.
The legislation, led by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), is co-sponsored by 33 Republicans and 14 Democrats — mostly moderates and staunch supporters of Israel.
But controversially for many Democrats, the IHRA definition includes "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor" and "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."
"It could be divisive," one senior House Democrat told Axios of the upcoming vote.
Assessing the Impact of Pro-Life Laws
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control released preliminary fertility data for the year 2023. Most of the media coverage focused on the fact that the number of U.S. births decreased by 2.1 percent last year. There was a slight uptick in births in 2021, likely due to more couples deciding to have children as the Covid-19 pandemic concluded. However, these new data show that the long-term decline in the U.S. birth rate continues. Overall, the new data indicate that the number of births fell to its lowest level since 1979.
The data do contain some good news for social conservatives. The teen birth rate continues its long-term decline, having fallen by an impressive 79 percent since 1991. Other sources of data also show a very large long-term decline in teen abortions. Mainstream media outlets are quick to credit increases in contraception use among teens. However, both the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth show durable, long-term decreases since the early 1990s in the percentage of teenagers who are sexually active.
More importantly, the data show that strong state level pro-life laws that were enacted in 2022 saved lives in 2023. There were 14 states that either protected all preborn children or had a heartbeat law in place for at least three months in 2022. In these 14 states, the birth rate declined by only 0.7 percent. In the 36 other states and Washington, D.C., the birth rate declined by 2.4 percent. The birth decline was clearly smaller in pro-life states than it was in states with permissive abortion policies. My preliminary calculations from this data indicate that pro-life laws saved about 18,000 lives in 2023.
My analysis does not account for previous trends in births or population. It also does not account for regional economic fluctuations that might also affect birth rates. That said, it contributes to a growing body of research analyzing recent birth data from Texas and other states. All of this research clearly shows that recently enacted pro-life laws have succeeded in saving thousands of lives.
Feature
Charles Camosy: Can secular health care institutions be trusted to make a moral brain death policy?
Items of Interest
Foreign
Netanyahu vows to invade Rafah as Blinken works against him.
Are Javier Milei’s reforms working?
Why Penny Mordaunt can’t save the Tories.
King Charles marks first official return post cancer treatment.
Pedro Sanchez remains Prime Minister of Spain.
Why TikTok and Tesla are the first real clashes in new Cold War.
Xi’s mission: drive a wedge between Europe and U.S.
Domestic
U.S. wage growth accelerated in first quarter.
Freedom Caucus won’t back MTG’s vacate motion.
MTG’s motion to vacate fizzles.
Ken Buck lets loose on Congress in exit interview.
NSA official sentenced for selling secrets.
John Avlon tries to run for Congress.
Lawfare
Trump held in contempt for violating gag order, fined $9k.
2024
How to watch the Trump veepstakes.
RFK Jr. fans revel in attacks from Trump, DNC.
Media
Redbird IMI, Jeff Zucker pull out of Telegraph takeover.
Hunter Biden plans to sue Fox News for showing his pictures.
Health
Britain’s NHS declares sex to be a biological fact.
Religion
The scandals haunting Pope Francis.
Ephemera
PEN America surrenders on Israel.
MLB uniform changes admit Nike flaws.
Paramount’s messy Hollywood ending.
Fallout massive success for Amazon, second highest streaming already.
Avengers’ director explains Marvel flops as not superhero fatigue.
Anderson: The VR/AR arms race.
Quote
“An iconoclast may be indignant; an iconoclast may be justly indignant; but an iconoclast is not impartial. And it is stark hypocrisy to pretend that nine-tenths of the higher critics and scientific evolutionists and professors of comparative religion are in the least impartial. Why should they be impartial, what is being impartial, when the whole world is at war about whether one thing is a devouring superstition or a divine hope?”
— G.K. Chesterton