Free Republic

It may be a “magical time of year,” but what we all really need right now is a good dose of realism about Israel and Palestine.

To My Friends on the Left: You’ve told me countless times over many years that antisemitism is almost exclusively a right-wing phenomenon, but events since October 7 indicate strongly that a far greater threat to the happiness, health, and safety of Jews comes from your left-wing allies. While Hamas was still live-streaming acts of rape, torture, mutilation, murder, kidnapping, and necrophilia on innocents; before Israel lifted a finger in response; throngs of your allies flooded streets, campuses, airwaves, and social media to rejoice. Still more of your friends hung their heads low to avoid offending the celebrants, who are vital...

It’s hard to be too surprised here. Everything in the educational system, popular culture and social media influencers have been pushing this idea. What’s striking is how extreme the generational difference reflected in the Harvard-Harris poll is. 65% to 35% overall oppose the “ideology that white people are oppressors and nonwhite people and people of certain groups have been oppressed and as a result should be favored today at universities and for employment.” A bare majority, 51% to 49% oppose the idea that white people are “oppressors” and “non-white people” should be favored. 79% of 18-24 year olds support it....

Rabbi David Wolpe is stepping down from the antisemitism advisory committee at Harvard University, citing “events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony” of the university’s president, Claudine Gay, during a congressional hearing this week on campus antisemitism. “Without rehashing all of the obvious reasons that have been endlessly adumbrated online, and with great respect for the members of the committee, the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” Wolpe wrote Thursday on X, formerly Twitter. .....

Law enforcement characterized the crimes as “swatting,” efforts to provoke unwarranted SWAT team responses. Someone emailed threats of bombings and shootings to schools and Jewish communities across Minnesota. On Wednesday, police received word of the intimidation at such Jewish organizations as Rochester’s B’nai Israel Synagogue, ultimately finding no evidence of danger. So far at least nine Jewish groups and 25 schools received threats. Investigators say they used almost identical language and characterized them as “swatting” wherein someone seeks to harm their target by triggering an unnecessary deployment of a SWAT team. The Minnesota jurisdictions affected by the crimes include Aitkin,...

We know that antisemitism is out of control on college campuses, and we just had three university presidents testify that calling for genocide isn't a violation of the code of conduct … it depends on the context, like if a student were to actually start killing Jews. That might be taking it a bit too far. But if you misgender someone on campus, that's "abuse." We've often asked where these college-age kids developed such a deep antisemitism. We doubt it was from their parents. Is it all indoctrination by university professors? Or is it because they get their news from...

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill is learning that free speech has a cost. She, along with Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth, the presidents of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively, testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked all three women if calls for Jewish genocide constituted harassment. All three ladies gave waffled answers that were both cold and insipid to the more significant issue of the antisemitism facing Jewish students amid the war in Gaza. A University of Pennsylvania donor is withdrawing a gift worth around $100 million to...

<p>Something eerie, something creepy, is happening in the world—and now in America as well.</p><p>The dark mood is brought on by elite universities, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion industry, and massive immigration from illiberal nations and anti-Enlightenment societies.</p><p>At Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, hundreds of students rioted on news that a single teacher in her private social media account had expressed support for Israel.</p>

Something eerie, something creepy, is happening in the world—and now in America as well. The dark mood is brought on by elite universities, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion industry, and massive immigration from illiberal nations and anti-Enlightenment societies. At Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, hundreds of students rioted on news that a single teacher in her private social media account had expressed support for Israel. Waving Palestinian flags, and screaming violent threats, the student mob rioted, destroyed school property, sought the teacher out and tried to crash into her classroom—before she was saved from violence by other teachers...

Greta Thunberg received a lot of heat after posting a picture with some fellow "activists" holding up signs such as "Stand with Gaza" and "Free Palestine." However it wasn't the signs that upset people the most. It was the object balanced on the knee of the girl behind Thunberg. (It was a stuffed octopus toy. I can't tell its color).

The bottom line is this: the modern home of antisemitism is the Democrat Party.That’s not to say that being a Democrat makes you an antisemite. Hardly. 7 in 10 Jews are Democrats, and many non-Jewish Democrats are anything but antisemites.But let’s face facts: the home of antisemites in America is the Democrat Party. While 80% of Republicans and nearly 70% of Independents support Israel, only 45% of Democrats do.Americans' sympathies overall lie with Israel in this conflict, but Democrats are splitBy a 61%-30% margin, respondents said their sympathies lie more with Israelis than Palestinians, but that's driven by Republicans (79%)...

In what should be a surprise to absolutely no one, the Chinese spyware app that doubles as a Chinese propaganda app is promoting antisemitism and anti-Israel disinformation and feeding that content to young, impressionable Americans. TikTok, a Chinese spyware app that funnels user data to a Chinese company that is directly allied with the Chinese Communist Party, is boosting “pro-Palestinian” content in the aftermath of Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 civilians in Israel. Antisemitic, pro-terrorist content on TikTok has regularly gone viral as “pro-Palestine” posts outnumber pro-Israel posts by a massive margin. KEEP ISRAEL, UKRAINE, AND THE SOUTHERN BORDER SEPARATE None...

International aid to Gaza is the only process that ensures its survival. This rather strange situation has no equivalent in any other place in the world except for the scientists living in Antarctica. Gazans are the most welfare-dependent population in the known universe, producing nothing except a few vegetables. And yet nobody asks why. Let us be crystal clear that every last Gazan would go elsewhere in the world if this aid stopped. The answer lies in the fact that the world’s powers hate what Israel stands for and, believe it or not, that’s not its Jewishness: It is, instead,...

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Monday to CBS News that Israel did not have a right “to kill 12,000 people in six, seven weeks” in response to the October 7 terror attack. Sanders said, “Well, this was how I respond. Look, Israel was attacked in an absolutely horrific way by Hamas, 1,300 innocent people were slaughtered. Israel has a right to defend itself, but what Israel does not have a right to do, in my view, is to kill 12,000 people in six, seven weeks, two-thirds of whom are women and children. That they don’t have right to do, that’s...

This is the text of the farewell letter written by Danielle Haas, senior editor at Human Rights Watch, It confirms everything we've been saying for years * about its obsessive anti-Israel bias. Dear Human Rights Watch, Because we live in dangerous times and this is a human rights organization dedicated to free speech, open dialogue, and rights for all, I’m sending a final email before leaving HRW. I’m hopeful, but wary, that an organization with a mission to “Expose. Investigate. Change” can do just that when it comes to its own practices regarding its Israel work, with authenticity and without...

Four days after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, WME invited Steve Leder, the rabbi from Wilshire Boulevard Temple, to visit the agency’s Beverly Hills headquarters. He came to provide comfort for employees reeling after the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Although the event was not mandatory and Leder’s speech was considered secular, several staffers voiced complaints, which made their way to WME co-chairmen Richard Weitz and Christian Muirhead. Instead of caving, WME invited Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to speak to the agency on Nov. 1. Greenblatt didn’t mince words, according to those...

Many Americans have noticed a disturbing rise in antisemitism in the country since October 7th. We're not naive, we realize it's sadly been there for a long time, but people are no longer trying to hide it ... One has to wonder why. Welp, a big chunk of the 'why' has to do with our pals in the mainstream media who, for whatever reason, seem to think they can trust Hamas for sources in their reporting. We made a similar face. David Collier put together a damning thread showing who exactly the media has been relying on for tips and...

Americans were horrified at the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli villagers on October 7 this year. The brutality and futility of the attack rocked the imagination. Yet within days, we witnessed huge protest marches in U.S. and world capitals and universities in favor of Hamas. Their favored chant, “from the river to the sea,” means only one thing, and that is the annihilation of Israel and all its Jewish inhabitants. Such support for terrorism exploded in the 1970s as well in European cities and universities, and people wondered then about this same gleeful valorization of revolution by comfortable, privileged...

Via Fernando de Castro in Brazil Prestigious hotels in Colombia, Uruguay, and Argentina are refusing to accommodate former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters. The refusal stems from Waters’ anti-Semitic positions. The decision to reject lodging for the left-wing singer and his team is primarily due to his stance on the Hamas-Israel conflict. Waters denied the responsibility of the terrorist group for the October 7 attacks, which claimed over 1,400 lives in Israeli territory. Over 200 Jews are still missing and being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. A Waters concert is scheduled to take place in the Uruguayan capital this...

Earlier this year, avowed communist James "Fergie" Chambers secured "multiple hundreds of millions of dollars" from his family, which controls the Cox Enterprises empire. Now, he's using his inheritance to bankroll a far-left activist group that's harassing Jews across the country. Chambers, whose billionaire father James Cox Chambers co-owns the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, in July revealed that he cut ties with his family, securing a significant payout from Cox Enterprises in the process. Months later, following Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist assault on Israel, Chambers began using that money to pay the legal fees for members of Palestine Action U.S., a...