Lame-Duck Craps on Israel

Barack Obama is a lame-duck President who has decided to take one last giant, vindictive shit on Israel on his way out. Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, have decided not to veto a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestine. This is a disgusting stab in the back to the most important ally of the United States, and there are many who argue that it is rooted in anti-Semitism.  The United States MUST stand with Israel.  Israel is a Democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by enemies who literally HATE Jews and deny their right to even exist.  For all of the issues I have with Donald Trump, it's things like this that make me glad that his inauguration is three weeks away.  Trump, rightfully, has made it clear that he strongly disagrees with Obama and Kerry on Israel.

By abstaining on the vote in the United Nations instead of using its veto power, the United States has not objected to a resolution saying that Israelis can't live, pray, or even be in certain places that qualify as part of this disputed territory.  This resolution is terrible, but not surprising.  There have been more resolutions passed by the United Nations that have condemned Israel than any other nation.  The list of all nations in the world includes North Korea and Saudi Arabia.  Anti-Semitism is to blame for the frequent chastisement of peace-seeking Israel.  By the way, two countries that voted in favor of this resolution are China and Russia.  No surprise there either.  The abstention of the United States was essentially the same thing as a vote in favor of the resolution.  If Benjamin Netanyahu is to be believed, and I believe him, the Obama administration actually helped to craft the resolution in such a way that it would be acceptable for the United States to abstain when it came up to be voted on.

For all the talk of Russia allegedly attempting to help Trump with the Presidency in the United States, a lot of folks forget that Obama actively tried to interfere so Netanyahu would not be re-elected as the Israeli Prime Minister.  Obama failed, but this vote feels a lot like it was a final "fuck you" to Netanyahu and, even worse, Israel.  It's not often that I agree with both Alan Dershowtiz and Chuck Schumer on an issue, but they are dead-on in this case.  Dershowitz said that Obama "stabbed them [Israel] in the back" and "this will make peace much more difficult to achieve."  Schumer said that, "While Secretary Kerry mentioned Gaza in his speech, he seems to have forgotten the history of the settlements in Gaza, where the Israeli government forced settlers to withdraw from all settlements and the Palestinians responded by sending rockets into Israel."

Netanyahu explained his frustration after the vote, saying, "My vision is that Israelis and Palestinians both have a future of mutual recognition of dignity, mutual respect, co-existence," adding, "How can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence?" and, "This conflict has always been about Israel's very right to exist."  Netanyahu has reached out in an attempt for peace over and over again, but the olive branch was never accepted.  How could it have been?  The Palestinian Government literally pays anyone who murders Israelis a monthly salary.  And John Kerry had the nerve to blame ISRAEL for the lack of peace in the region?  As an American, this angers and frustrates me.  I am ashamed at the failure of the United States to veto this resolution.  I stand with Israel.  I do not agree with the Obama administration on this issue, but I have hope that the incoming Trump administration will keep its promise of standing with Israel as our greatest ally.

Senator Marco Rubio summed it up better than I could, so I will leave you with his comments:

"Secretary Kerry today once again decided to cater to the demands of freedom’s enemies and devote an entire speech to disparaging a country that is one of our closest allies. This administration’s shameful undermining of our moral standing in the world should be a warning to administrations for decades to come about the consequences of America abandoning our values. When we fail to take a stand against those that seek to deny Israel's right to exist or try to question the Jewish history of Jerusalem, we hurt not just Israel but our own credibility.  The greatest immediate threat to the future of Israel is not a stalled peace process, or settlements, but the abandonment of the Jewish state by the current U.S. administration at a time when it needs America’s support more than ever.  I look forward to working with President-elect Trump and his incoming team to restore our relationship with Israel to its proper place. I intend to continue to work with my colleagues to fight alarming efforts by those in the United States and internationally to promote modern day anti-Semitism through the boycott and divestment movement. I will also work to ensure that if the United Nations wants to continue to promote anti-Semitism and anti-Israel views, it will do so without U.S. taxpayer funding.  This shameful episode in American foreign policy cannot end soon enough."

A Challenge to Wesleyan ...And You're Already Failing

I submitted the post below to be published in the school newspaper that I was editor-in-chief of a decade ago.  They published my letter, which I was encouraged by at first, but then I noticed that they took out three parts of it, further proving my point of what needs to change and already failing at my challenge.  This is very disappointing and very telling.  I have highlighted the parts (bold, italic, and underlined) that were removed when it was published (http://wesleyanargus.com/2016/12/05/a-challenge-to-wesleyan/).  There will be a follow-up letter.
LATE EDIT: Apparently The Argus restored the missing paragraphs in the online version.




Donald Trump said many indefensible things during his campaign, and some of these careless and stupid comments excited the KKK and other bigots, but the vast majority of the over 60 million people who voted for him are not bigots and cannot be ignored.  The Steve Bannon appointment does not help change what I believe is a flawed leftist idea that Trump is a racist, xenophobic, sexist, white supremacist, fascist monster.  However, he has apologized for many of his painfully ridiculous comments, clarified that not all Mexicans are rapists, said that most Muslims in the United States are peaceful, decided that same-sex marriage is a done deal, and disavowed his racist supporters.  I truly hope that Trump surprises me and many others and somehow becomes a great President, but I must issue a challenge to Wesleyan after reading the "How The Argus Intends to Cover a Trump Presidency" Editorial.



The Argus editors rightly point out that Trump's call to "make America great again" is problematic, but it is ludicrous to state that this slogan is "a yearning for a bygone era and a thinly veiled tribute to an age before the Civil Rights Act, before the esteem of white identity was bruised by the small strides toward the empowerment of marginalized people secured therein. This call, and the rest of the rhetoric surrounding it, is an unequivocal appeal to white nationalism."  There is nothing unequivocally racist about a dumb, vague campaign slogan, which may be directed at adding more jobs to America, reducing the role of government, maintaining America's sovereignty in an age of globalism, or any number of other things.  I applaud that The Argus does not want to become "a platform for white nationalist apologism, let alone white nationalism" and I take no issue with the quote from Bernie Sanders that was referenced, but what in the world do you mean when you say that The Argus "will start by prioritizing and amplifying historically marginalized voices"?  I fear that it means solely voices of minorities who agree with you, and this fear grows when you state, "We reject any false equivalency between the underrepresentation of conservative voices in this paper and those of historically marginalized people."  What about historically marginalized people who ARE conservative voices?  I challenge The Argus, Michael Roth, or anyone on the Wesleyan campus who is able to invite a conservative speaker from a historically marginalized people to speak on campus.  Hopefully he or she will not be rudely interrupted and the Q&A session will be a platform for engaging dialogue.



If you would like ideas on who this speaker should be, I'd put Ben Shapiro on the top of that list.  Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew, and I can't think of a people more historically marginalized than Jews.  Shapiro is also extremely critical of Donald Trump and did not vote for him.  If you'd like to invite someone from a group even more marginalized than that, although he is not a practicing Jew, Milo Yiannopoulos fits that bill, being a homosexual person of Jewish descent, though I personally disagree with a number of his alt-right views.  Other options include African Americans like David Clarke, Allen West, or Ben Carson, or an immigrant from India who was incarcerated (essentially as a political prisoner) for a non-violent crime and stripped of his voting rights, Dinesh D'Souza.  I hope that The Argus truly supports "the creation of an avenue for serious and earnest criticism from conservative voices" that it claims to, and I hope that Michael Roth and the rest of the Wesleyan community support it as well.  The Argus is in a position of power in that it can choose to maintain its integrity, consistency, and long-held views on censorship (not publishing hate speech, defamation, or personal attacks), or change by refusing to publish things based on the political views therein, such as anything that "normalizes Donald Trump himself." A standard to "contest ideas, not people" does not make sense if it is not also applied to the President-elect.



When I was at Wesleyan, I learned about views that were different than mine, and I engaged in conversations and debates.  Sometimes my views were changed, and sometimes I helped to change the views of others, but I learned how to listen to the other side, how to find common ground, how to stand up for what I believe in, and how to debate against what I oppose.  I listened, without interrupting, to prominent liberal speakers brought to campus, such as Peter Singer, who is cool with murdering babies and old people in certain situations.  Being largely Libertarian, I've had plenty of spirited but respectful debates with friends, many of them Wesleyan alumni, over the last few months.  Many made great points, but others ended discussions by falsely accusing me of racism, telling me to fuck off several times, telling me that I shouldn’t have a say on abortion since I’m a man, or telling me that I don't have the authority to speak about Black issues in America because I am white (at which point an African American friend of mine entered the discussion and agreed with me, but the other white person I was debating still disagreed).  For the good of your education, to improve your ability to understand and debate the other side, and for the sake of hearing viewpoints from outside of the Wesleyan bubble, I challenge Wesleyan to bring in a prominent conservative voice to speak on campus, especially one from a historically marginalized group.  Leading up to this year's Presidential election, I doubt any prominent speakers were brought to campus this semester who spoke about how the Clinton Foundation takes money from countries that murder homosexuals and have no women's rights whatsoever, how Hillary is a war-hawk beholden to many entities, or how she counted a former KKK leader (Robert Byrd) among her mentors.  I believe that leftists who refuse to engage opposing views helped contribute to Donald Trump’s victory.