I think this whole episode was a racist vendetta. (And I’m white.) The so-called plagiarism consisted of a missing or misplaced closing quote and one other minor thing. Everyone who has ever typed a paper has made such mistakes.
It is possible to plagiarize inadvertently. I write song lyrics, and file them under the band name "Oblivion's Maelstrom", as I intend to found my fourth band as soon as I am able. I am not certain, but I suspect that "Maelstrom of Oblivion" or "Oblivion's Maelstrom" is a term which I might have lifted from Poe during my teen years. I've been trying to find it online for years without success. But if/when I organize my future band, which will be an LLC, someone might come along with the answer, and an attempt to discredit me could be the result.
I don't know all of the details of the plagiarism issue, but it seems unlikely that a Harvard President would jeopardize her career deliberately. Without knowing the details, I am in favor of erring on the side of regarding this as a mistake unless or until I know more.
As Tom Nicholls of the Atlantic wrote: But these new revelations about Gay’s work seem to show a pattern that is too damning to ignore and transcends excuses about sloppiness or accidents.
Well, I guess it depends exactly on what those "exceptional" qualities might be...The Corporation elected her in and then canned her. Do you think the donors would have ever chosen John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the American Dr. Syndney Wolfe - relentless consumer advocate and fierce adversary of drug companies and the FDA?
Ok, I think I understand what you are saying. Let me put it another way. If someone makes a mistake after five hours of grilling, is that really an indicator of inadequacy?
Note: After UPenn president resigned, Stefanik said "One down, two to go" and after the Harvard president resigned she said "Two down". Other GOP politicians said "Two down, one to go".
I am not qualified to say whether the presidents should or should not have resigned. But what happened looks like a witch hunt to me.
And what does this mean for the future of education in our country? I am worried that it will deteriorate.
It was the Zionist powers that be trying to crush criticism of Israel’s war crimes, shocked that the world is not fainting when they label all criticism as antisemitic. It is also Bill Ackman’s racism.
I agree. And as Robert has pointed out it is also a heinous abuse of their monetary power. These individuals should be called out as being responsible for the any innocent Jewish individuals and groups that may suffer anti semitic violence as a consequence of their over reach.
"Her comment" seems to have been nothing more than an incomplete comprehension of the term "intifada", which I believe simply means "uprising", or "resistance". Could you have done better?
As I recall the three university presidents were coached by one of the "Big Law" law firms on how to answer the questions as if this was a litegic situation with litegic answers. That was their first mistake. They took a defensive attitude and it showed. As an observer I felt they were not interested in protecting the students threatened. They were interested in protecting themselves.
"Stefanik then asked the presidents whether calls for intifada against Jews on campus violated the codes of conduct or harassment policies at their universities.
Gay temporized. “It can be,” she said, “depending on the context.”"
That answer gives me no confidence in the abilities of Gay to govern. She should have been forced to resign for giving that answer. The thing is, the "Corporation" knew she said that as a result of the coaching of the lawyers hired by the three universities to coach them. Because of that, which was the fault of Gay's employer's who hired the lawyers, they could not fire her. The plagiarism situation was a different issue but added to the lack of confidence alumni and students had in her abilities. When the student member of the Harvard Honor Council stated that her appointment was the result of a "double standard," one standard for her and one for students, I knew she was "toast."
Her incidents of plagiarism were not punctuation mistakes as some other commenter said earlier. There were, according to
a complaint received by Harvard University on December 19, an outline of more than 40 allegations of plagiarism against Ms Gay.
The two issues should have either gotten her fired or never appointed to the post of President of the University to begin with.
That major donors were very public about their feeling in regard to Ms. Gay is true. That their pressure on the Corporation to remove her had to have influenced the Corporation.
My point is, if the Corporation had integrity and a true sense of ethics, none of the donors' public outcries as well as the statement made by the student member of the Honor Committee would have been necessary in order for the Corporation to force her to resign.
Way too many "shoulds" here - adds up to speculation as to motivations by all concerned. Please characterize what a perfect Pres "should" have done and compare to previous cases.
And, by the way, "an outline of more than 40 allegations" from a self-defined biased source does not constitute evidence.
One of the student members of Harvard's Honor Code Committee has anonymously stated that there is a double standard in regard to Dr. Gay. That Dr. Gay would have been asked to withdraw from the University had she been a student based on the evidence already presented. When I read that I knew Dr. Gay would resign which she did the day after I read that.
There are o viously two different issues at play in regard to Dr. Gay. One had been around in a low level way for a while, her plagiarism. The other very recent, her statements regarding what constituted a threat to what should be a safe place for Harvard students that are Jewish. She has failed to meet the proper standards she should be meeting with regard to either issues.
No, it’s complete bullshit. The people who are in danger are Palestinians. Not the Jewish students who might actually have to hear about Israel’s war crimes. The other people who are in danger are Americans, who are having their free speech rights, violated and attacked by Zionist.
OK. But isn't this yet another example of evaluating the role of university president by comparing to a completely different role, in this case that of a student? And is it not possible that "evidence" and "speech" and "actions" are being muddled into a pudding of excuses for political control over expressions of opinions?
Calls for intifada against Jews o campus or Jews in general is definitely antisemitism. Calls for intifada against the Netanyahu government and the bulk of oppression and genocidal behavior of the Jewish state of Israel are not. Intifada means "uprising," and could better be described as resistance than genocide.
"From the River to the Sea" chanted on the Harvard campus means from the river to the sea. . . . If Ms. Gay needs "context," in the context of Hamas's barbarianism on October 7th, the meaning is unambiguous.
Parsing like a litigation attorney doesn't cut it.
She doesn't cut it. It's good for Harvard she's gone.
I know you’ve heard of the concept of free speech? Palestine will be free from the river to the sea is about Palestinians. It’s not about Zionist. But while you were focusing on bullshit, Israel has murdered 30,000 Palestinian civilians. Your eyes are in the wrong place. You’re tripping over mouse turds when people are being murdered. And FYI the conflict dates back from 1948. Nothing started on October 7.
Makes perfect sense; I was disappointed to see a big "nothing" on your Substack newsletter. Or your Substack "tabletop." Do you read anybody? Feel free to read mine then, Thompson.
For some reason I'm listed as having a Substack newsletter. I don't know how that happened, but I don't have one. Yes, I do read a number of people, and have commented frequently on other sites as well. And the state of Israel is a political entity that has for long violated the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people, whose homeland was coopted to found that state. Even Ben Gurion noted that the Arabs could not but hate them in light of what was being done to them. As such, I believe the world, and especially America, should hold Israel to the highest standards, and make our political and economic, and especially military support conditional on their acceptance of at least a two-state solution. And Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. People of conscience are outraged, and they should be.
Stefanik lied and said Intifada and Palestine will be free from the river to the sea means genocide for Jews, which is just asinine. The whole point of the December 5 hearing was to silent student protest about Israel’s war, crimes and focus instead upon Zionist students getting their feelings hurt by Israel being criticized. Ignore the genocide, but don’t hurt our feelings by talking about genocide.The actual genocide, the targeting of civilians, children, refugee camps, evacuation routes, hospitals, aid worker. Israel is an apartheid terrorist state and we need to get beyond the false label of antisemitism for any criticism of its horrendous behavior. Israel has bulldozed live people, engaged in summary executions and organ theft. May they be held accountable for their crimes.
You've got it exactly right, Dorothea. The "beasts" in this conflict are the Israeli government and defense forces. And there is no dearth of Israeli citizens that see it exactly like that.
". . . they were resolved at President Gay's request."
Those four were corrected AFTER they were outed. If you think that's how the Honor Code Committee metes out enforcement to the student body of Harvard, you need to do some research you have obviously not yet done.
You should google what I said instead of sharing your lack of knowledge.
"The professor had previously filed a complaint to Harvard's Research Integrity Officer on Dec. 19 alleging more than 40 instances of plagiarism, many of which had already been reported by the Free Beacon, the New York Post, and conservative activist Christopher F. Rufo."
Not so. A student member of the Honor Code Committee which reviews possible breaches of the Code says Gay is the beneficiary of a double standard that would penalize a student had they done the same things. It is said she lifted verbatim a half page of another author's paper on the same subject without using quotation marks or attribution.
I have not seen a public show of support by colleagues of her work or a defense against the more substantive plagiarism charges and I'm not talking about any punctuation issues.
I doubt she would wanted to go up before a formal revue so, she resigned.
Meg...Or all of the university presidents could have ignored their invitations to testify like all the republican representatives ignored their subpoenas to testify before the J6 committee..
why in God's name would you do that? Do you think a university president should not be concerned with such things and that universities should not either and that anyone can just take anything from any source without attribution?
Ask not what you can steal from your country, ask what your country has stolen from you ( <-Parody of JFK statement)
The difference is, one is plagiarism and the other is a charge of plagiarism that may or may not be true.
That’s the difference.
Now, like Prof. Reich, I have not studied the facts of the plagiarism charge — someone here said it was a careless citation, not s substantive one. Others say it rises to the level of actual plagiarism, especially given her academic status . I’m not making a statement about that …
But you asked the difference between “plagiarism” and “the plagiarism angle,” and the one would be a real gripe, if validated. The other would be a subterfuge, if not validated.
Absolutely not. If it is a possibility, she likely could have "written" those pieces prior to the programs to scan for plagiarism. This should be completely checked out. Ethics and integrity are important. If she's guilty, she should be banned from working with students. I don't want my child working with a cheater who can't do their own work and is a fraud.
You are making a tu quogue or “you too” argument. It doesn’t matter who has committed the same or more serious offenses, the evidence shows that Dr Gay committed plagiarism. We have to reject “whataboutism” from all sides.
I was speaking to the trend, what seems to be happening today in our country.
But it does seem democrats are hit much harder than Republicans for much more atrocious criminal behavior. The democrats get thrown out for less yet so many support Trump who essentially committed treason & murder (those death’s wouldn’t have happened if Trump hadn’t called the armed people to ‘go to the Capitol and fight like HELL’.
Then we have a debate over whether he did anything wrong? It’s so obvious he did!
Plagiarism should be clearly checked out. Any leader of students should be ethical and have utmost integrity. Students need to have adults they can model. The behavior of many congress members is atrocious. A code of ethics and behavior should be established. Our youth is learning horrendous behavior characteristics by watching "criminals" getting wealthy and taxpayers paying their way.
This is what Gay actually said. I don't think most commenters know what she said.
Several days after the Hamas attack, Gay released a statement condemning the “terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” and affirming that “no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York asked Gay if Harvard would take disciplinary action against students or applicants who say “from the river to the sea” or “intifada,” the Arabic word for “uprising.”
The two terms are sometimes used at pro-Palestinian protests and Stefanik argued that the use of “intifada” in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is “a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews.”
Gay said that while she did see that speech as “abhorrent” and “at odds with the value of Harvard,” the university still embraces “a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”
When that speech crosses into conduct that violates Harvard’s policies against bullying and harassment, or incites violence or threatens safety, then action is taken, she said.
So at a university, she supports free expression. How horrible! Stefanik, who is a strong supporter of trump, mis defined those terms to try to hurt these women. She supports trump who is a real anti-semite. No one bothers to point that out.
Thank you. How could her response be questioned as anything but responsible, let alone anything worthy of being fired. Powerful, monied, arrogant, toxic men are the problem.
William, Stefanik is one of Trump's favorite kinds of women, a misogynist who hates women almost as much as he does. She is a jerk who likes to do a gotcha on people so her Fox friends can take it further, maligning, misquoting, and deliberately misinterpreting what those attacked women have said. It works well for her because it has made her look "strong" or something that MAGAs really like. There are other women in the Trump stable who have the same misogynistic qualities: Powell, Conway, maybe Nikki Haley, and a set of red-state female governors who despise their "fellow" women and will disparage and undermine them whenever possible. Stefanik is nasty and has a loud mouth as well as an Ivy League education, so that gives her some additional traction, but no more credibility. She is what she is, but the worst players in this "game" are the rich men who think they have a right to do harm to women in power because their money gives them permission. It shouldn't, but as long as money is the factor that determines one's worth in our society right now, things will probably not get better as soon as needed.
I would like to forget her. She is my rep and a total embarrassment to her constituents. She is untruthful, mean spirited, and a carpet bagger from the start, using her parent's summer home address, all the while campaigning in the district with Virginia plates on her car. Don't get me going on the fact that she is a puppet for Trump. She has no idea of Harvard's motto "Veritas". Truth is not in her vocabulary.
I think Stefanik targeted Gay in a racist manner. She twisted the context to trap Gay. Stefanik is trump’s sycophant and her actions are racist and misogynistic. However, Gay was walking the line between free speech and hate speech and her response was not nearly strong enough.
The fact that the wealthy board members are using their leverage to fire the presidents is intrusive and very troubling indeed.
How is that relevant to this discussion? Kati Kertesz claimed that Gay was targeted because of her race. That is obviously untrue because Stefanik asked the exact same question to the 2 WHITE presidents so its clear that this had nothing to do with race.
I tend to disagree on the point regarding the concept of protected speech. Students have issued outrageous statements without challenge on campuses like Harvard and Penn. Not measured statements condemning the attacks by Hamas while also condemning the violence against civilians, many of them children, in Gaza. Their statements shift all the blame to Israel. They outwardly support Hamas and Palestinians.
Take these same students and shift the context to 9/11. Can anyone imagine the backlash against speech from student protesters who supported the hijackers, the Taliban, and Osama Bin Laden? Imagine the claims of American imperialism for having our soldiers on Saudi Arabian soil despoiling the lands near Mecca. No one would have allowed such speech without repercussions.
Antisemitism is growing in America. These so-called leaders from MIT and formerly of Harvard and UPenn did a shameful job of not condemning the speech from the students who went past the line. They allowed Jewish students to feel intimidated and uncomfortable on their own campuses. They failed to push back and draw the line. They failed to bring people together to learn from each other. They failed to quell hot passion with reason.
Palestinians had nothing to do with 9-11, the hijackers, or the Taliban. Intifada literally means to wake up, shake up oneself, uprise. It was a response of NATIVE resistance to Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank beginning in 1987.
(See Oxford Dict.). Ask yourself: why do you only hear that the state of Israel "has a right to defend itself"? Why not the native Palestinians whose land has kept being taken to be given to the immigrants (not refugees) who now comprise the bulk of the Israeli population? The Palestinians have every reason to resist their dispossession, displacement and maltreatment by the state of Israel.
Where did I say Palestinians had anything to do with 9/11? Think the point whooshed over your head.
Regarding Palestinians rights since 1987:
Educate us on the number of peaceful agreements entered into by Arafat, the PLO, and the like over the decades before Hamas took control in 2007? And how the Israeli government broke those agreements?
To the best of my knowledge, two-state solutions have been sought and negotiated, and Arafat actually walked away from at least one of them thinking he could get a better deal.
Then we have the right-wing Israelis who assassinated their own leader to prevent a two state solution. Few hands are clean here as neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are monolithic.
I can condemn the actions by settlers under Netanyahu at the same time I condemn the Hamas attacks on Israel while at the same time condemning Israel’s war crimes in Gaza since October.
Who from the Palestinians in Gaza can be negotiated with? The terrorists in Hamas who don’t say they’re only for a free and peaceful state, but actually add they encourage violence for the destruction of Israel?
If Israel laid down all their arms and declared peace for all tomorrow, they’d be annihilated. They do have a right to defend themselves. And the Palestinians have a right to build a life in Gaza. They’ve allowed warlords and terrorists to operate and promote hatred for Jews. How many regions in the world have required the UN to operate camps and aid for 75 years? Palestinians should take some responsibility. They should condemn the sexual violence against innocents Hamas conducted. All I hear are excuses for how it’s all justified somehow because it was done to end Israeli oppression.
Somehow I don’t think attacking civilians and provoking an invasion by a superior military force is creating the ending Palestinians people want.
You mean the students who made the outrageous statements that weren’t condemned by Gay that got her fired?
You mention them being Muslim. I don’t think support for Palestine is limited to Muslims and Palestinians. For example, there are liberal American Jews calling for the end of genocide and free Palestine as well.
Gay was a poor choice to lead Harvard. The error has been corrected. The large quantity of political bovine fecal matter being spread on this distracts people from the basic facts of her inactions, inabilities and so forth. Time to move on, to work to improve the intellectual atmosphere at Harvard.
Most people on this thread (and elsewhere in "reporting" haven't taken the time to fully research what Gay said/didn't say OR what the line of cherry-picked questioning took place at the committee hearing in question. This is a large part of what is tearing our nation apart---such little regard for real truth nor being bothered with taking time to research full facts. As a retired teacher, we have failed to sufficiently teach critical thinking.
But that is EXACTLY what Stefanik & company are seeking.
The answer wasn't as inept as it is being presented. Go read what she actually said. She made the mistake of allowing Stepanik to define the terms and she mis defined them to damage the presidents. Stepanik supports anti semitism, she supports trump.
This has nothing much to do with her or their answers. It's about power and who gets to wield it, display it, and so send a message to others about it so they "tow the line".
" Sure, you may think you have power and independence, but it is conditional upon the grace of others, and don't you dare forget it."
It’s “toe the line.” I’m not criticizing you personally, but of the several times I have seen that phrase in comments over the last few years, every one of them had it wrong. A boat tows a line to pull a skier. People line up submissively, putting their toes on a line drawn on the ground by their leader.
You're right; it's a common mistake, I have probably seen the mistake often and repeat it without thought. Another one I have seen is people saying bought instead of brought, for some reason.
See this where the Atlantic writer thinks it right that Gay step down for plagiarism.
“Pike” is the original but “pipe” is excusable, since it resembles “it’s in the pipeline.” Not sure how many people know what a “pike” is anymore (a kind of road).
steve reed, I think you are right. Things are not always as they appear. Rampant egos obsessively need to control others and create conflict to show/prove their superiority. This situation shows the rampant egos of the politicians and the donors and the people they control and exploit.
Stepanik is like the cynical female lawyer hired to defend an obviously guilty rapist that was caught in the act who blames the victim due to what she wore.
William, isn't it ironic that the loudest voices supposedly in favor of Israel are really, themselves antisemitic? This was just an issue to let rich mostly white men flex their monetary muscles and do it against women in power when they believe they can justify it. Very clever because most people won't actually care and the rest will go with the side that has the most money which means those guys are certainly right to do whatever they did. What will be their next "problem issue" and who will be their target?
The requirement of a university president — or a president of anything else — is to be a master of rhetoric. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Stephanik wanted nothing more then to have it all devolve into a political fight. They were wise enough not to do that. After all, if you lie down with pigs, you start to smell like them and Stephanik is starting to smell a lot like trump.
William, you are right on this one. The challenge, Stefanik wants the power through bullying rather than knowledge and understanding. She doesn't get it that if her loved Donald gets into power, she will just be a tool as long as she is willing to be his obedient hen, just like the other women in Trump's chicken coop, produce the eggs or you're gone.
Of course, the university presidents remained above it all — to their peril. I suppose that we don’t need to worry about their future. They’ll probably join boards of directors and make plenty of money — even though they quibble about genocide. Weird, the world we live in.
Yes, there are lots of members of particular religious cults, denominations, and so on, who hate others based on ideology. For example, Missouri Lutherans deny that Evangelical Lutherans are actually Lutherans. When will this madness stop? Historical religion is the culprit. I recommend the film by Slavoj Zizek called “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology”; it will remind you of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”
She stood the heat but then the monied interests threatened to pull their money from the university. They demanded her ouster and the university did not stand up to them.
Huh?? his son-in-law is a Jew. you are an idiot. Stop asserting falsehoods as though they are truth. You people who hate Trump just attirbute anything you think is a bad characteristic to him.
His Daddy participated in at least one pro-Nazi rally in his day. On the other hand, DT had Roy Cohn for a mentor. Kind of a proto-Giuliani, come to think of it.
I think Trump is another Joe McCarthy (1950’s) spewing all sorts of lies about people, stirring the pot. Roy Cohn was his attorney also, he was know as the mafias’s attorney.
McCarthy was finally called out when he attacked the army. He died of alcoholism a few years later. (See Wikipedia)
I hate TUMP and i am proud of it. Everything is BAD about TUMP. There has never been anything good about him. Falsehoods are the only thing he spews every day of the week. I don't give a damn whether you like it or not.
John, Trump qualifies for the death penalty and hard labor is the only acceptable punishment next to that. I prefer whatever causes him the most grief. Anyone who finds ANYTHING likable about a deadly tyrant like trump is not facing reality…just like their orange leader. Most of republican Congress should be removed for sedition as well.
SeekingReason, i totally agree with you. I can instantly think of some of the worst Congress members, Maggot Traitor Goon, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Mike Johnson... and in the Senate, Tommy Tuberville, Rick Snott, Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz. Those i mentioned are by far the worst ones.
You...You are seeking reason?? You are lost! You miss the point. It is NOT about TRUMP. it is about distorting and misusing the system as you cheer for your view of Justice. This undermines our democracy far more than Trump. He is one person and a shallow one at that. But when you undermine and manipulate our institutions to go after a single person you undercut democracy. You, sir, are without reason. And obviously a typical Democrat. Reason is whatever you say it is. Read Animal Farm and see yourself in it!
You do realize Jared kushner received almost 3billion $$$$ from the Crown Prince? Why? Very suspicious that the death & dismemberment of JAMAL KHASHOGGI was shelved, and then Jared, a Jew got all this money from our enemy who obviously gave the order.
Elise Stefanik goal and intentional confusing questions in her MAGA GOP performance was designed to confuse, criticize, and distort the answers. Elise and the wealthy Harvard donors exhibit their clear goal was racism. The MAGA GOP like Stefanik used an immaterial mistake as plagiarism to destroy the first black women as President! What a shame that Stefanik was privileged to acquire a Harvard education but to totally waste it on hate and prejudice! It is too sad that the Board’s of these prestigious educational institutes permitted their President’s to be improperly drilled by a MAGA House!
Pardon me, I thought that Americans were paying the MAGA Representatives to govern and not to spread their hate and their divisiveness!
Atomfemmme: It is not racist. Take a second look at the people in the Corporation.
The popular chant by Islamophiles at Harvard and other Universities is a call to genocide
"Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" is a call to genocide. No matter what one thinks of Israeli "aggression" against the Palestinians, the Islamic goal is genocide of Jews, as Hamas says in it's covenant, the obliteration of Israel, and that my friend entails the genocide of the Jews.
Israel may have been a Jewish state, but it was also secular, open minded had Arab citizens, Arabs voted and occupied seats in the parliament until the radical religious orthodox right wing Jews formed a coalition and the settlers, often with the assistance of the IDF harass and murder west bank Arabs to take possession of their land.
Their Arab brethren in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia don't want them either, and where is the outrage about that.?
Preamble to HAMAS covenant: Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory). That is a call to Genocide, and act 1 was Oct 7, when they massacred up front and personal babies, toddlers, children, women and elderly and where o where is the "outrage" from professors. students and ignorant Islamophiles.
How about Art 7, para 7 of the Covenant, extracted from sacred Islamic text, the haddith of al Bukhari
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).. More genocide, but I guess that doesn't matter, they are only Jews.
Hitler would agree.
Meanwhile the HAMAS "Ministry of Health" lies every day and with every utterance and Professors and feckless students, as well as Martin Griffiths of the UNUnder-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Believes every lie uttered by HAMAS, claiming that it has been verified by "triangulation" whatever that is and triangulated with what. Even the corporate media swallows HAMAS lies, but when it comes to Israel and the IDF they caveat claims of finding HAMAS cells and tunnel entrances under hospitals, they caveat with "unverified", talk about stilted. HAMAS claims are treated like truth, but IDF claims are unverified. Is there a hidden agenda here, say like oil and prices?
There is no excuse for Israel's behavior, I lay this all on the lap of Netanyahu and the Israeli right, they have the same problem we have in the U.S. with Trump and his right wing.
However HAMAS is totally responsible for the death and destruction rained down on them, just like the NAZIs were totally responsible for the death and destruction rained down on Germany.
Incidentally Oct 7, 2023 was also Putin's birthday, and the HAMAS attack, was a birthday gift, and was possible only because of logistic, tactical and planning support by Iran, and guess who is Putin's BBF? Iran of course.
The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel)
a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.
If "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" is a call to genocide," isn't "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" also a call to genocide? Why is a Palestinian purported "call to genocide" evil, but an Israeli "call to genocide" a "legitimate" political goal?
Maureen, read my comment to Lee. Study Israeli history from the Balfour Declaration to the 1948 agreement Churchill made with Abdullah, to the 1967 war won by Israel to Ariel Sharon removing all of his troops to the disputed land to 4 presidents giving the Palestinians 99% of what they wanted to Putin, Iran and Hamas efforts to commit Israeli genocide!
Actually, my views are based on reading Palestinian history from the Bronze Age to the present and are not based soley on the opinions of European colonizers nor on the maxim: "It's mine. I stole it fair and square." Annexation is now generally considered illegal in international law, even when it results from a legitimate use of force (e.g. in self‐defence).
What Europeans colonized the mid east, much less Palestine.
That word colonizer and imperialist is thrown around too readily and loosely, it has become useless. There is a dude who calls America an imperialist, but gives a pass to Putin, who is killing Ukrainians and destroying towns, and will most certainly liquidate his enemies if he wins that war.
I guess you didn't know that the British controlled Palestine and handed much of it over to the European Zionists who wanted to colonize it (just as, when the British conquered the Japanese in Vietnam at the end of WWII, they turned it over to the French to re-colonize--great fans of imperialism, the British).
As Tom Pessah wrote, "Zionism was never simply about the idea that 'Jewish Lives Matter' — it has always privileged Jewish colonists over indigenous people. Just ask Theodor Herzl," who wrote to the arch-colonizer Cecil Rhodes, "You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial. [Y]ou, Mr. Rhodes, are a visionary politician or a practical visionary… I want you to.. put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan and to make the following declaration to a few people who swear by you: I, Rhodes have examined this plan and found it correct and practicable. It is a plan full of culture, excellent for the group of people for whom it is directly designed, and quite good for England, for Greater Britain…."
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, in 'The Iron Wall" (1923), made no pretence that Zionism was not a colonial endeavor. He wrote:
There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. . . it is utterly
impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.
My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other
countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.
We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of
a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.
That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is,
whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate? Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible. And we are all of us, without any exception, demanding day after day that this outside Power, should carry out this task vigorously and with determination.
Two (or ten) wrongs don't make a right, even if you think they do.
I take it you believe that anyone who doesn't agree with you, including the many Jews who do not agree with you, is antisemitic. You should seek help for your persecution complex. What the Israelis are doing and you are justifying would be equally disgusting if the Israelis were tantric yoga practicing purple Patagonians.
Yours is the 2nd post I was about to give a heart of approval until the very last sentence. The other said "you have Jew hatred stuck in your throat". This one accuses Maureen of antisemitism, & though I may disagree somewhat with her position on this issue, I am sure that is an inaccurate & unfair characterization of her.
There is nothing in that that calls for genocide of Muslims, on the other hand HAMAS and Islamic sacred books call for the genocide of Jews.
A big difference. Nice try but big fail.
And the notion that 8 million Jews, in a small nation could genocide Muslims,is totally ridiculous, drop that genocide gig, it makes you and those that use it seem irrational and brainwashed.
8 million Jews in a small nation could easily exterminate 2.3 million Gazans in a tiny, walled-in 144 square mile ghetto--especially when they can herd most of them into the south of the ghetto: like shooting fish in a barrel.
In 1947, the UK turned the Palestine problem over to the UN. After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947). The Jewish portion did not include the West Bank, Gaza, or the Golan Heights.
"They brought it on themselves." That's what colonizers always say about their attempts to dispossess and/or exterminate the colonized. It's also what abusers say about those they abuse: "Why did you make me do that to you?"
If Israel wanted to commit genocide against Palestinians, they'd all be dead, and (and I'm sure you've heard all this before), the Palestinians in Gaza have increased by 1 million; all told there's been an increase of I think 5 million. Genocide? Hamas is responsible for the death of the Palestinians in Gaza. They wanted those deaths. It's their main PR strategy.
So, obviously, it's time for the thinning of the population or the mowing of the grass. These are the words of the Israeli government but you don't think they are irresponsible.
I believe Netanyahu wanted this invasion. He needed it to stay in power. He supported keeping Hamas in power. He knew of their plan to invade. He removed troops from the border. It was an open invitation.
The Netanyahu administration's response to multiple warnings about an imminent attack by Hamas on Israel reminds me so much of the Bush administration's response to multiple warnings of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda on the US. They both apparently purposefully left the country vulnerable, diverting defenses of the target area elsewhere.
No its Pal-o-cide. and it's because Palestinian allow Hamas to mingle among them and hide in plain sight among people who lend themselves to this camouflage and then want to be construed as innocent...I don't see it that way. And I see the Palestinians as complicit in the acts of Hamas because of that..
Genocide, you do violence to the word genocide. Genocide is the intention of Islam Israel is defending themselves from the future, proclaimed genocide of Jews by it's Muslim neighbors.
Preamble and paragraph 7 of the HAMAS covenant, but I know you won't read it, as you have Jew hatred stuck in your throat.
That's your opinion. I've heard other definitions of that slogan which have nothing to do with genocide. You also fail to mention the high-ranking officials in the Israeli government who do not want any state for Palestinians and have called for expelling Palestinians from Gaza. When an Israeli official says a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza, is that a better slogan?
Lee, That's because Israelis value history. They've been screwed over ever since the promise of the Balfour Declaration to the 1948 agreement Churchill obtained from his friend Abdullah in order to get his cooperation. The biblical land of Palestine that was promised to Israel was given to Jordan. Israel's portion was reduced by 80%. Now, the Gazans who lost the war in 1967 want to reclaim it through Iran funded propaganda. Israel has given its life's blood to keeping the land they were given and won in 4 major wars, where they were attacked but surprised everyone and won. Think Ukraine! No US citizen died in behalf of Israel. We gave them military support, as we are doing in Ukraine but nothing else. Now Hamas would like to take back what Israel won fair and square. Funny thing is that Palestinians have a very short historical memory.
The British gave away Palestinian land, homes and olive groves, etc. to Jewish colonizers without their agreement or compensation!!! There was no excuse. Pro-Israel people are enraged by any criticism because at heart they know it was absurd and if the roles had been reversed they would never have accepted such a thing. The Holocaust was a great horror, but many such things have happened in the history of the world, if only on a smaller scale. It is happening now in Gaza. Many are seeing the cruelty, the litany of propaganda and excuses, the control exerted by the wealthy over free speech and over Congress and Biden (AIPAC's #1 recipient of donations), the reflexive accusations of antisemitism, the indoctrination in schools, the crazed claims to the land based on 2000 year old religious texts. Israel is accused of acting like the Nazis that killed the ancestors of many Jews. The country acts only out of hatred. They are in a frenzied killing spree. Palestinian children are smart and sweet and beautiful to look at. They are not ugly, stupid lesser humans than the Zionists, who call them "human animals." Look at the videos of these astoundingly brave, resilient, smart children. The Zionists' hearts are dead. They are killers, thieves, torturers and destroyers. There is no excuse. Jewish people don't have to have their own religious state supported by hundreds of billions of US money. They live happily all over the world. If antisemitism is growing, it is due to Israel's atrocities or to claims of antisemitism cast toward anyone suggesting the slightest dismay at their endless slaughter in Gaza. They say if this was a genocide, all the Palestinians would be dead, but it's being carried out at a more "acceptable" pace and they say that it will continue for months and months. Eventually Gazan natural gas and lovely shoreline will belong to Israel and one way or another the pesky indigenous Palestinians will no longer live in Palestine, which the sick propagandists like to say never existed. This is too sad.
It has nothing to do with opinions, It is the logical consequence of the slogan, Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" is a blatant call for genocide.
However I stand in awe of the human mind's ability to rationalize and justify their prejudices and beliefs.
It very well could've been Putin's idea to divert world attention from their barbaric slaughter of Ukrainians, reduce Western support of Ukraine, & cause internal dissension in the US & Europe. It couldn't have worked out any better for Putin.
US intelligence on Israeli military operations -> Trump -> Russia -> Iran -> Hamas -> savage attack on Israel -> Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Putin knew what he was doing. So many Americans fell for it.
There you go. It all makes sense doesn't it. America's eye was taken off the ball, and the corporate media has a new bright shiny object for us to chase and be distracted.
Mark me, soon there will be HAMAS/Israeli fatigue, and it will all slowly fade into the background, while the opposition to Trump from the left is fractured, by stupid professors and students and easily swayed non thinking liberals.
The Presidential campaign will sideline Ukraine, HAMAS, Israel., and the rift on the left will empower the Republicans, as leftists, Muslims,and blacks sit out the election or vote for third parties.
Trump has the hearts and minds of the MAGAts by promising to use dictaorial powers to "cleanse America of "vermin" Musllims, but that will never happen, because the Saudis have America by the throat (they Own Exxon and refineries in cancer alley), they also have the one thing that Trump loves.. money, and they shower him and his family with billions.
Your paragraph 3 explains a lot. The Orthodox Right & the Settlers who illegally dispossessed Palestinians of their lands and livelihoods.
I recall the era of the 1970’s & even the 1980’s where students from countries in the West were frequently entreated to” come work on a communal Kibbutz & learn about self sufficiency “. It was very appealing through that era of “ back to the land” Movements.
I had friends go do that. They had no idea the land they stayed on hadn’t always been freely settled. 😟
Israel has changed, the same way America has changed, and for the worse, with the rise of the Religious Right. We have Trump and the MAGAts, and Israel has Netanyahu and the the Likkud and it's coalition.
As regards always being on the land. Forget not that the Jews actually bought the land from Arabs between 1920 and 1948, and their Arab neighbors tried to genocide them in 1948, they failed, and not having learned their lesson, they came back, again,again,again an d again and will notstop, even if there is a two state solution. Israel knows it, the Muslims know it, but the vapid west doesn't, because arrogant westerners know jack squat about Islam, only the obfuscation, whines they hear from their Muslim friends and professors.
Israel did what any self preserving country would and has done in history took over the land of the people that tried to obliterate it, which the Arabs call the Nakba (catastrophe) well they brought it on themselves with their genocidal attempt, and Israel needed borders by which to secure it's safety. All countries do. And each time their Muslim neighbors tried to genocide the Jews, Israel took more land.
You would think the Muslims would have learned a lesson,. But I recall the words of Einstein about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results
While you're quoting religious texts, how about the one Netanyahu quoted to the Israelis at a public appearance, that God said to exterminate the whole of a population -- Melek, Malech? He was referring to what he intended for the Palestinians (oops, did he mean Hamas? Somehow he always conflates them. Always.)
Well this “ genocide “ is happening on the Palestinian people everyday since Oct 8, 2023. 20k people wiped out including babies women and children by 2k bombs dropped on houses hospitals churches mosque, all looking for “ Hamas “ in these tunnels by IDF! Tell me who is running to the sea to escape these bombs. Who are the dead. Who are the hungry. Who are the homeless . Who are the sick and thirsty? Who is burying their children?!
Spare me the false equivalencies and HAMAS propaganda. HAMAS is lies and exaggerates and gullible westerners eat it up, whole sale, by questioning he veracity of the Jews. That alone is a sign of antisemitism.
What a false analogy, equating people running to the sea, with a religious dictate of Free Palestine from the River to the Sea, you must think you are clever. The IDF is waging war to protect itself from genocide by Muslims, not committing genocide.
The idea of a 7 million Jews genociding a billion Arab.Muslims is preposterous, you and ;people like you do violence to the word genocide. Jews genociding Arabs, preposterous, Arabs Genociding Jews a reality.
The word genocide is thrown around so readily as agitprop, that it is worthless. It is like the boy who cried wolf.
I tire of it. "Poor Arabs are being genocided by a handful of Jews. Meanwhile the religious requirement and motivation is the Genocide of Jews
From the HAMAS Covenant:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
I am sore tired of the idiocy and gullibility of American students and professors . Higher education hardly, more like brainwashing factories and who funds a great part of these Universities? The Saudis and the Emirates.
Thank you for setting the record straight Lee. Richard Davidson and you renew my faith in Jewish values on parade in Israel as we speak. Would that the US electorate re to tRump as the Israeli public has to Netanyahu.
I set the record straight, because of facts. I have no ideology, no beliefs, and am highly critical of the conscienceless settler and right wing Jews that back Netanyahu and kill Palestinians and drive them off the land so they can take over and build kibbutz.
Enough is enough and their actions only create reaction and intensify animosity, but I do believe in the right of Israel to exist, and that the actions of the Arabs in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 2006 and Oct 6 were unjustified and insane.
The fools, the morons, the idiots brought this on themselves, by trying and failing to genocide the Jews in the Levant.They will never learn, because it is a religious obligation, so sayeth their sacred books.
I am anti Muslin because I have studied their religion it's sacred text, and it has not modernized, it has only retrenched to it's fundamentals.
I am anti Zionist, not anti Jew, Jews don't and haven't bothered me or the west, despite the tropes bandied around by left and right.
I eschew the word antisemite because it is based on a fraud and myth, that there was a flood, with Noah as it's hero, and he had a son Shem (from which the word semite), and a descendant named Abraham, who had two sons Isaac (patrriarch of Jews) and Ishmael (Patriarch of Muslims) so Muslims and Jews, per the myth are semites.
And I am anti Christian as well, given that most of the blood spilled in history has been by Christians, mostly fighting each other, but always, always demeaning and subjugating women, gays and "heathens" like the American "Indians" One of my ancestors even migrated to Virginia in 1650 to "civilize" the Indians, paradoxically white children adopted by the "uncivilized" Indians preferred to live with the communal "Indians" to returning to the world of the religiously crazed,intolerant and selfish white world.
This is in the Hamas latest version: Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.
9. Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry. It is the religion that inculcates in its followers the value of standing up to aggression and of supporting the oppressed; it motivates them to give generously and make sacrifices in defence of their dignity, their land, their peoples and their holy places.
Hamas and the right wing government of Israel are equally devious.
Link please. Otherwise I take you as an Islamic propagandist. And they (HAMAS) violated their own covenant on Oct 7th, invading Israel by land sea, and air, slaughtering teens at a festival, killing and burning alive childen, babies, women disabled and elderly.
Deceptive, yes but the Israeli government has been just as bad. They've killed over 20,000 civilians and 70% were estimated to be women and children. I'm sure that burned some alive and killed disabled and elderly. No one is defending Hamas but you are defending the Israeli indiscriminate bombing.
Give me a break. I ain't playing the numbers game, ignorant westerners fall for it, so easily and never ever question HAMAS Health Ministry figures, but automatically question Israeli.
Here is a fact. HAMAS is responsible for every Jew and Muslim life lost. They use Jews and their own people as human shields.They are blood thirsty religious fanatics with no principle, At least Israel is giving notice of attacks.
The UN finally admitted that HAMAS has been using hospitals as command posts and storage, and entrances into tunnels.
Every person slaughtered from Oct 7th on, is the fault of HAMAS, whose agenda is genocide of the Jews.
Just like every person killed by allied bombs was the responsibility of the NAZI's and The IJA.
This numbers game of the Muslims doesn't work. The religious fanatic idiots started a war to obliterate the Jews, and paid the price, they misjudged the Jews, they thought that the Jews would lay down arms and bawl for return of the hostages, after all they freed 1,000 prisoners for the return of one soldier, boy did they ever misudge.
Anyway Oct 7th was one helluva a sweet birthday present for Putin., just what he needed to distract from a real genocide in Ukraine.
And vapid, feckless American leftists have fallen for it.
Did you know that Saudi Money is a major endowment of American universities. Just as they own Exxon, and the gulf coast refineries, American labor refines American oil, so that the Saudis can ship gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and kerosene all ove the world.
I understand that "From the River to the Sea Palestine must be Free" refers to the area of Israel, which is why I did not join in with that particular chant when I was marching in solidarity with the Palestinians in Boston this past fall. However to equate the right of those in Gaza to be free with the genocide of Jews seems like a very peculiar interpretation of genocide which is murder and violence. Palestinians living in the U.S. are free and have the rights of other foreigners and new immigrants. They are treated as all people are.
I do not think the (permanent) "refugees" living in Gaza have anything resembling freedom or autonomy even in the area surrounded by Israel that they have been dwelling in during these recent decades. They have been dealing with blockades and severe travel restrictions to nearby areas, nothing at all like the freedom that Israelis have to move about and visit friends and family. It has not been a good or normal life for them.
Did you not hear the words coming out of her mouth? Was it worth a resignation? Probably not. Was it definitely worthy of a reprimand? Yes. And a question of her morals. It was definitely a political and theological decision for her to make/say. A person in her position should know better.
Racist vendetta? If you believe “vendetta” is an accurate label, and not hyperbole...then you should have no objection to those who characterize her testimony as conscious antisemitism.
Both positions miss the mark. Of course, racial and religious prejudices most surely play a role here, but more invidious than insidious...as that is the cancer the exists throughout so much of American society.
As a Jew...and I might add a 73 year old “black hat” Yid with two advanced degrees...this division between our peoples pains me. The organized, insidious racist groups in this country...the Charlottesville scum...want nothing better than to hang both of us from the same tree.
When I was young, we were allies in the fight against racial and ethnic bigotry. I only hope we can recreate that alliance.
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere here, but it was a major discussion point on another site, probably Twitter (X), that Gay had supposedly unfairly punished (expelled?) certain male Black professors, & therefore was being accused of a certain kind of discrimination (misandry?). I have no knowledge of the veracity of these accusations, but she is apparently quite a controversial figure in more ways than one.
William its also in the WSJ. It's everywhere. Do you really think a liberal outlet would 'Out' her? Look at how Reich responds- knowing nothing he defends her and warns of how dangerous this is... OOHHH. now that is veracity. Wise up and grow up. Look at the country where you live and the political environment. If a Republican says 2+2=4 is it wrong because a Republican said it? Oh sorry to do that to you, I forgot that math is racist...
I know you are trying to be insulting but it didn't work. I know how the right works and perhaps it's you who should grow up. I don't subscribe to the WSJ. Did they independently verify it or did they just quote other right wing groups? I'm a math major and it's not the liberals saying math is racist, it's the conservatives. I could also show you when 2 + 2 does not equal 4.
Thank you for that. John... Perhaps you, too, will enlighten me as to what you find missing?
I have a BA, MA, and PhD in Economics. I was a research Chief at the New York Fed. I was the first guest on the first day on CNBC. I have been to over 40 countries giving economic advice- Always invited back.
I'm sure your opinion is much more important than my successful 50 year career suggests.
I would love to be enlightened by what you find missing so I can improve - never to late to improve. please respond and share your wisdom.
Thank you for that. perhaps you will enlighten me as to what you find missing?
I have a BA, MA, and PhD in Economics. I was a research Chief at the New York Fed. I was the first guest on the first day on CNBC. I have been to over 40 countries giving economic advice- Always invited back.
I'm sure your opinion is much more important than my successful 50 year career suggests.
I would love to be enlightened by what you find missing so I can improve - never to late to improve. please respond and share your wisdom.
You do not think it specious that they start by accusing her of not being harsh enough on antisemitism and then switch to running third party accusations of plagiarism?
The charges of plagiarism have been reported in every major news outlet. Not only that, the evidence is laid out for everyone to see. You can see what she wrote side by side with what she copied. It's absolutely clear she plagiarized.
Because no one looked. Why is it that only the right wing media found this and the mainstream media invented new terms to cover up her plagiarism like duplicitive? Because anyone reporting on this would be accused of racism.
"Despite the results of an investigation commissioned by the Harvard Corporation last month that found cases only of “inadequate” citation, new charges about her work include episodes of what most scholars would recognize as academic misconduct, including plagiarism. Experts consulted by CNN consider the recent excerpts to be plagiarism, and I agree: I was a professor for almost 35 years, at multiple institutions, including Harvard, where I taught courses for their continuing-education and summer programs for 18 years. I have referred students for varying punishments based on similar misconduct; I have also sat on boards that adjudicated such claims.
...
Look, there is a term for the particular kind of plagiarism discovered by racists and other bad people:
Maybe because, if it was only misplaced quotation marks, it didn't rise to the level of getting fired? [It obviously didn't rise to that level since she was NOT fired then].
Maybe the accusation comes now that firing her sounds more political and they needed to revive a more genuine reason to fire her?
When the source has Gay's excerpts right next to nearly identical text (that the WFB sourced and cited), and Gay did not cite the sources, it certainly looks like plagiarism. If there is any criticism, it should be directed to the Harvard committee that oversaw the review of plagiarism allegations.
Every single media outlet has reported these charges. They are real and they are plagiarism. The evidence is laid out. They showed the 2 passages side by side, the plagiarism is undeniable.
"As a Jew, I also cannot help but worry that the actions of these donors – many of them Jewish, many from Wall Street – could fuel the very antisemitism they claim to oppose, based on the age-old stereotype of wealthy Jewish bankers controlling the world."
My first reaction following his first paragraph was a sense of unease accompanying a fleeting thought having something to do with those damn space lasers cross my mind. I completely agree.
Anyone tempted to make antisemitic assumptions because of Bill Ackman, Marc Rowan, Seth Klarman, etc. should also remember that Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive American Jewish activists were among the very first people in the U.S. to protest openly against the Israeli bombardment in Gaza. There are also the group letters and statements of Jewish writers, academics, and artists that criticize the misuse of the Holocaust and fear of antisemitism to censor protest against Israeli government actions.
Does anyone think it’s any coincidence that these are all women? it seems like all the “good old boys“ that Professor Reich named here have a bone to pick with these women. And I don’t think it’s simply all about comments pertaining to Israel and the Palestinians. Are these big money donors concerned about the slaughter that’s happening in Gaza now? Probably not. Aside from that, there is nothing new about the intrusion of mega millionaires and billionaires into every aspect of American society and culture. They control our elections, they bribe politicians, they control arts endowments, and they are involved in every single decision that Congress makes, for better or worse. I think it’s the biggest plague that this country faces, aside from Donald Trump.
Exactly! They control everything! And their influence is practically always negative. They are why we are the only supposedly advanced nation without universal healthcare even though we pay twice as much, why we can't get anything substantial done on climate disruption & environmental destruction, and why our democracy is in grave jeopardy, among so many other ills & crises we face.
We are the only place in the world where many thousands of people go bankrupt due to excessive medical debt every single year. It’s obscene. Plus everything else you wrote. Just the thought of how we are under the control of these corporate masters exhausts me. It’s seems impossible to overcome.
The Washington Free Beacon and Harvard. Now that's a story with juxtaposition. Harvard needs to tell the wealthy donors to zip it OR take their money to public universities who actually need it. The donors were bullying the 1st female African American President of Harvard. That's shameful. Thanks RR for calling this out.
The more her work is investigated the more instances of outright plagiarism have been found. She cannot lead a prestigious school with this hanging over her head. It was appropriate that she resign
Forgive me if someone else has already said this. My concern is that this will be used by the GOP to discredit the various African American women prosecuting Trump.
They already are in various other ways. It comes with the territory (unfortunately for Black women, who are demonized & denigrated by the right no matter what they say or do unless they totally give in to the republofascist dogma like Candace Owens).
It was her like testimony before a Congressional hearing that was the smoking gun, and should never have happened. Only progressive university Presidents would answer a call to stand tall before a Republican congressional hearing and explain why you won't repeat the words they demand you repeat. She/et al screwed up by repeating the phrase, and adding, "Congress has no authority over academic institutions and how they set policy for their students."
Congress can't force a private institution to appear before a hearing, maybe with a supoena, but not to testify. I would of been more impressed if these Presidents baited by this Republlican congresswoman, and merely agreed "the genocide of Jews is should not be allowed on our campus. Now, that I've fulfilled your agenda to say what you want me to say, I'll leave, because you have no authority or jurisdiction over my university, it's students, and what they say or do!"
What I have to wonder about is "How did she get the gig in the first place?" If that Corporation is so powerful/influential, wouldn't they have blocked her appointment from the get-go? I'm wondering if it was some kind of Affirmative Action placement: Black AND Female AND Gay? (Okay, that last one was a in poor taste bad pun. Sorry; couldn't resist.) Makes me wonder who the other candidates that did NOT get the gig were.
The reality is that charges of plagiarism or other academic misconduct should be considered by a faculty committee rather than trustees who should concern themselves with financial and legal integrity issues and get the hell out of student and faculty academics.
And why is that? What do the wealthy class, the overwhelming majority of which are good-for-nothing dopes who inherited their fortunes, have to do with EDUCATION???
THIS is why 30% living in America are INSURRECTIONISTS supporting a morbidly obese, mentally-feeble, criminal rapist who has hands softer than an infant's bottom!
I’m not sure that the majority of the wealthy are “good for nothing dopes,” I do agree that very few of them know too little about education to be involved in making decisions about academic issues. They do know how to give money, which all academic institutions need. Unfortunately, they then think they are entitled to run the institutions.
I agree that the 30% supporters of Orange Hitler are insurrectionists but I don’t see the connection to the other issue.
Trump and Musk are walking proof Henry, that you don't need to have an education or even be truly literate to be rich. All that is required is to be ruthless, sociopaths and a psychopath, any of RR's readers could be millionaires if they possessed these antisocial qualities. That we don't is why we belong to the RR fan club.
Truth. Some people are ignorantly worshipful of the wealthy, apparently unaware that they or their relatives only became wealthy on the backs of the working class.
*Exactly*: why can't "the rich" stick to subverting the political system & skewing the tax code?!?
= D
PS: Remember that the rich have *plenty* to do with education, e.g. cheating the system so that their legacies are secured admissions. (The question should really be why they would need to tamper with day-to-day administration as well... to which the answer is - obviously - because it suits them just fine.)
Aye - there’s the rub. Turns out the search committee and Harvard Corporation are one and the same. That’s a conflict right there and they also didn’t do their job as a search committee. This needs to be corrected and changed as a matter of policy. They should also change their name from corporation to Board like other universities.
But if the selection of a university president is not the stuff of faculty committee review, at all,does plagiarism go un-found, un-discussed, and without impact on the choice of the leader?
Yes, unless there is a committee of the faculty where a member might (a very big if here) investigate the record. Having served on. UC faculty committee that advised the Regents on selection of a President, I’ve seen how the head hunters had more influence on the process than faculty. It may not be a bad a sausage making but it’s not pretty. Surprisingly, the process can result in excellent people being chosen, at least at the UC President level. But don’t get me started on the qualifications of academic administrators in general.
In a relentless campaign, Griffin, Ackman, Klarman, Blankfein, secured the hearing, created a pr distraction and then continued until they pushed Gay out.
And who has responsibility for that? HAMAS who unleashed the hounds of war. Just like the NAZI's were responsible for the bombing of women and children in Germany
Don't start a fight you can't finish, yet HAMAS did and then used the bleeding hearts of the west to save them from the consequences.
What a deal. I attack but hide behind hostages and "innocent civilians"
Human shields.
And are any of them innocent, maybe babies and toddlers, but I am certain that on Oct 7th, the women were watching streaming videos of the attack and slaughter and ulating, and children glued to the TV sets were cheering for the Islamic terrorists.
I personally can not comprehend the affection that Ms Gay and the students have for the MUSLIMS. Islam is the most intolerant, homophobic, misogynistic religion, that has power over it's people, today, second only to fundamentalist Hindu, the BJP party, and the would be theocratic Christians of America. like Dominionists (Christiian Reconstruction) Judaism is liberal, and in Israel Secular.
She shows no more love for Muslims than for Jews. Ever read the Bible? You can find all the intolerant, homophobic, misogynistic behavior that most religions have.
I read the bible cover to cover, first time at age 12, sans a hall monitor telling me what it meant, the second time when age 40, and often since. I know what is in the bible, incest, rape, murder, genocide.. so what. I am an atheist, and believers be they Christian or Jew don't live in a theocracy, Israel is not a theocracy.
Muslims on the other hand live in theocracy, where Mufti's, Ayatollahs and Morality police roam the streets and terrorize the population. Have you paid attention to Iran, the imprisonment and slow strangulation of girls because they refuse to wear or wear properly the hijab.
How about stoning of women, most of whom were victims of rape, but adjudged adulteress because they can't find four men who were witnesses, (Of course a male witness is an accomplice)
Jews and Christians (not yet at least, things will change if Trump is elected) don't practice the old and new testament, well maybe some sects to a limited extent, but it is a different story in Islam. There is no deviation form the "Holy Quran" and haddiths, not in an Islamic country.
And the setting — the public forum — works against women in a way that is reminiscent of ancient public shaming of women who dared to step out and think and act independently.
Robert is unable to face up to the damage of affirmative action policies that gave gay degrees and the highest position at Harvard despite academic dishonesty that I have called out In freshman students. She was not well served by mentors who must not have closely examined her work.
The rules are different given our position in life. Like you, I graded freshman essays based on their true merits; but as we see at elevated levels of society, the rules change.
I attended an institutional leadership course where we were asked: what is the primary role of an academic leader? We sat in our little groups with chart paper and magic markers and came up with "educational role model" or "academic cheerleader" or "socializing motivator" etc.
The correct answer: an academic leader's primary role is to INCREASE ENROLMENT! (that's when I quit the academic leadership course)
I worked in higher education all my life, and in my experience, the bottom line was always "bums in chairs", ie, money.
The second role of the academic leader was also instructive: PROJECT A POSITIVE IMAGE. I guess that's where ex-President Gray went off the tracks.
"was" slaughtering? John, I think he's still at it. (And Syria is now known as the torture center of the world.) But where is the outrage? And where is the outrage over Putin ratcheting up the bombing of civilians?
Selective principles, selective morals; political expediency, especially in an election year. these people can be bombed; these can't. These people can do the bombing; these can't. And of course the military-industrial complex makes big $ on every bomb dropped.
It's not just the climate that's going to hell; it's human morality.
Fact: Between 350,000 and 500,000 German civilians were killed during WWII Allied air raids, raids conducted in the war against the Nazis.
If elimination of Hamas is a proper and appropriate objective...and if one doesn’t accept that then they are living in another universe...the question is how it can be accomplished. And of course, I’d wager many of you fail to acknowledge the relevance to civilian deaths Hamas embedding military infrastructure in hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure. Such moves would be sanctionable violations of “rules of engagement” in any western military.
The for some reason not so obvious retort is there would be no bombing if there wasn’t an invasion by thousands of armed men whose sole purpose was to murder, rape, and butcher 1200 men, women, and babies. There would be no bombing of civilians if the civilians were not made into protective f
Right on, These feckless and ignorant bleeding hearts, have been brainwashed by the media and Islamic propaganda. Israel's real problem is that it doesn''t sit atop massive oil reserves.
Please chill, Lee. calling people feckless and ignorant bleeding hearts is totally unconvincing. You know they could call you brainwashed by the Likud and Netanyahu. We don't get anywhere like that.
The idea that "Israel's real problem is that it doesn't sit atop massive oil reserves". is interesting. Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan could explain to you that sitting on top of oil reserves does not guarantee peace, on the contrary.
You obviously haven't read my comment(S) I deplore Netanyahu and the settlers, the Israel right, and have been called an antisemite because I am opposed to Zionism.
But I deal with facts, not ideologies or bullshit. abhor religion, it is responsible for more suffering, oppression and pain than any other cause and in that I include all religions, period
Afghanistan does not sit atop oil, and Libyan oil is the cause of it's own misery .Qadaffi and successors were stupid and eat up with themselves and their religion.
The Jews are a lot smarter and wiser than Qadaffi, and Arab oil has the world wrapped around it's finger. all they have to do is squeeze the sphincter muscle and the world falls to it's knees. If Israel had the Arab oil reserves, it would be an entirely different world.
Chevron owns Global industry which is a majority shareholder in the Leviathan field, and that is natural gas, not oil, and is a pittance compared to the Saudis, Kuwait, Qatar, the Emirates, Iraq and Iran.
It is like comparing T Ball to Professional baseball.
Actually when the sanctity is removed the people who were attacked can go after military targets wherever they are. There are no doubt many innocent people being killed. However if there are so many innocent people in Gaza then how did they win a landslide election while campaigning on the destruction of Israel and the Jews? This is all Hamas and Irans fault and the people of Gaza brought their own demise by sideing with them.
That statement is true, Jeffrey. I don't know what causes this but in French newspapers too, they agree that Hamas did hide under that hospital that was bombed a while back.
The French also have the experience of Algeria, when the Fellaghas were fighting the French: They would hide ammunitions under schools and hospitals, making it harder to fight them without hurting the civilian population. The French colons of the day (1952-1962) were just as ruthless, and it took a long time and a lot of efforts on both sides to reconcile. That's why we can say to our Jewish friends: don't do it.
I truly don’t understand this notion of dispossession. Do you think an armored brigade swept out of Birobidjan in 1947 and drove the indigenous Arabs from their land. Jews comprised the majority of Jerusalem in the 19th century. There were always Jews on the land who did not convert when Muslim armies swept out of Arabia, North Africa, and what is now Turkey. Obviously 19th century nationalism and the persecution of Jews in Russia and Europe, brought waves of Jewish immigration beginning in the 1880s. The situation is quite complicated; there was a civil war resulting in UN sponsored partition in 1947. This was not the only partition in 1947; India was divided to create a Muslim state in Pakistan which resulted in over one million murdered and hundreds of thousands of women raped. Three major wars, terrorism and two nuclear powers in a state of war ensued. There was no Palestinian state because the leading Palestinian family (the Husseini Mufti of Jerusalem allied itself with the Nazis and raised SSregiments for Hitler while broadcasting propaganda from Berlin. The British ceded Palestine to Jordan, refusing to reward Nazi allies with statehood. After partition, 5 national Arab armies invaded the Jewish state , were driven out and boundaries and populations shifted (like India). Half of the Jewish population are self described Jewish Arabs, driven from Arab countries (Iraq, Syria, Egypt Morocco, Libya and probably some I’m leaving out) Like I said there are few moral certainties in history; massacre and the threat of massacre provides some
What about the terrorists killing 9000 Black people in Sudan and 7600 people in Nigeria? Israel would be Sudan or Nigeria, except that it fights back. I don't know what the answer is and am not a military expert, but no one seems to report on the same terrorism killing all of those thousands in Nigeria and Sudan. Where is Black Lives Matter when the terrorists say they don't want any more Black people in Sudan?
And you are silent on the fact that HAMAS is responsible, just as the NAZI's were responsible for the bombing of innocent women and children in Germany.
And the religious motivation of HAMAS and indeed Islam is the obliteration of Jews, and the name for that is genocide. Do yourself a favor and read the HAMAS Covenant Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Especially the preamble and article 7, paragraph 7, which is also Islamic sacred text.
And what about all of the innocent women and children slaughtered and burned alive by HAMAS and Islamic Jihad, no outrage for them, it was upfront and personal, The IDF is not personal, just trying to weed out and eliminate HAMAS who poses and existential threat to the Jews.
Then again HAMAS thought that they could get away with it, but using hostages and their won people as human shields.
Learn, think, analyze and don't get sucked in by Islamic propaganda.
You and all o f the other bleeding hearts, especially women, would not survive in a Muslim world, unless you convert and the women accepted the status of breed cows, and the gays, well they would be thrown off roofs, stoned or beheaded.
:Point taken, but I don't use ,my words lightly. As I have stated in other responses. I have studied Islam, to the extent that a Muslim called me a Muslim apostate(a murtadd),
Islam is a religion of peace, provided that it is supreme and peoples of the book (Christians, Jews and Zorastrians in Iran) are satisfied being dhimmi's (second class citizens), however if gay or an atheist it is off with your head, being hanged or stone, same for polytheists like Hindu, they must convert or die.
As an example Malaysia is not safe for Hindus, atheists, gays or women (at least self validating western women), submissive hijab, abaya wearing women are OK.
In an Islamic country like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran even Pakistan women can't travel unless accompanied by a male relative.
Often the musicians are Sufi and don't believe in all of that. Read Ali Akbar Khan's biographical book, in which he talks about all of the child abuse he experienced. He set up his music school in California. There are also Muslims in Israel who reject terrorism and many Muslims in the US claim to reject terrorism. I use the term terrorists or Islamic extremists. There are Jews and Muslims in the US who don't want anyone to be harmed and never wanted this war to happen.
You and all o f the other bleeding hearts, especially women, would not survive in a Muslim world, unless you convert and the women accepted the status of breed cows, and the gays, well they would be thrown off roofs, stoned or beheaded..
This is what the extremists in Israel's governmen want?
LMAO. You certainly have reading compehension skills
If that is not what you refer to, then copy and paste that paragraph. I've so many comments.
Very true, but that is only because our money, purchasing Muslim oil, has infiltrated our universities and brainwashed our feckless, idiots cum professors and students.
Linda, what gets me is that where did those missiles come from? I thought israel had blockaded Gaza? also, why had israel never taken out the tunnels, which have been known about forever? just get a tunneling machine and start anywhere on the gaza border. not rocket sugery. anyway, back to missiles, there must be some identifying marks on the exploded parts which could be used to identify the origin. if so, go after the suppliers (wait, unless it's usa). yup war is big business.
Hamas and Hezbollah bombed Israel with 13,000 missiles and rockets while Hamas fails to use its billions to feed its people. Who talks about all of the missiles and rockets fired on Israel? Who talks about towns in the north and the south being evacuated?
Not Israel but Netanyahu and the settlers, Israel was, before Netanyahu and his religious right coalition, an inclusive, secular state, that even recognize the rights of gays and atheists, Not so any Islamic country.
Them there are facts. Where would bleeding heart Jews, atheists, Christian would survive, in Israel or in an Islamic country?
Answer is Israel, not an Islamic country.
I don't think that you or they could answer that, because they know nothing about Islam. I do, I have studied the Quran, haddiths and per Islamic thought, I HAVE to be a Muslim, for one who has been exposed to Islam to the extent I have HAS to be Muslim, and thus I am an apostate Muslim, and the penalty for apostasy is, death
The most dangerous place for Jews today is in Israel. Since WWII, a Jew is 80 times more likely to be killed in Israel than in all the European countries combined.
The Zionists are showing themselves to be mass-killers and "ethnic-cleansers" -- all the while trying to present themselves to the world as the victims.
I do not understand how you get from "the bombing of women and children continues" to "just another anti-Semitic hater of Israel". It is clearly true that the bombing is continuing and it is killing men, women, and children. It says nothing about the politics or emotions of the person who makes that statement.
Funny you should say that. I was very concerned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Enough that I attended the 50th anniversary memorial services in both cities.
...
War over in one day!?! Wow, are you talking nukes??? Understand reality on the ground??? Yeah, right.
One does not need to be antisemitic to lament the bombing of women and children, Richard. Come on! and innocent Jews have died too in this conflict. All these useless deaths are deplorable.
whether these presidents should be removed from their office for not automatically denouncing the idea of genocide is beside the point. Robert is pointing out the influence of these major Donner, and that their money should not give them any say whatsoever. Read the book, "Thee are the Plunderers" by Gretchen Morgenson about what private equity is doing to all sorts of companies, and health organizations, etc. by overloading them with debt, but getting thier profit before those companies either go out of business or go bankrupt, because of the debt and put hundreds of people out of work and decreasing customer satisfaction and health care. Yet they dare stand up to make a moral point, because they made so much money ??? This book even points out Apollo in particular amongst many others. The is a continuing moral bankrupting of many institutions based solely on those who have obscene amounts of money. Two wrongs do not make a right!
Daniel, you didn't get my point, sorry. My point is we need to change the regulations about Private Equity, that creates lots of ills, that have been growing like wildfire over the past decades as they are plundering our corporations, companies and healthcare with debt so that they make money, at the expense of others, in the way they are allowed to structure it. Then they use their money to continue to press their own agendas which is not in the best interest of companies, health care, education or politics.
I think he got your point (note that "private equity" wouldn't have a customer were it not for public pensions, endowments, etc. etc. chasing ephemeral - and not provably sustainable returns; further, note that well-educated citizens wouldn't have any reason to believe in the claims of the private equity industry, let alone a reason to dedicate themselves thereto)...
Rishi, I hear you but I have to disagree with the ‘well educated part”. Many of the people who go into private equity and partake it it, are usually well educated. They just are in the pursuit of pure financial gain, not in furthering the goals of the organizations they buyout. They see a cash cow, or real estate that they can leverage, and damn the goals or visions of the organization. They see it as legal, if perhaps shady morals. Jack, (Nuclear Jack) of past GE fame was a prime example. Very well educated and knew how to lay waste to a hugh amount of companies, and since he ended up with so much money even ‘religious’ Universities sought him out for donations to heap fame on him, even though it turns our that he was morally bankrupt and didn’t care about the organizations he ran into the ground, including the people as they were all a means to his end of money and fame.
In this case "well-educated" means not just the citizens that take employment with private equity concerns but also the folks whose consent is required to redirect investment $ to private equity: all of those people are private equity 'customers' (less so the folks whose companies get exploited) - and can only make decade-long (or longer) commitments by believing all those structural advantages will amount to something more than market returns (which is exceedingly dubious to folks of even modest education). Indeed, folks like CalPERS should *never* have aped what the Ivies were doing - and now appear to be holding the bag (i.e. while The Corporation seeks out new chums for the next great feeding fest).
PS: No disagreement about 'Neutron Jack', Al 'The Chainsaw' Dunlap, or any other such character - but those individuals still have a customer they have to serve ("shareholders" if you ask them, "stakeholders" if you ask the rest of us)... and they are, anyway, in a slightly different position as head of a conglomerate (which is not strictly the same thing as a private equity company - which is much more financial and much less likely to be invested in a given company's long-term success).
Money is a HUGE motivator in politics. Santos, Jordan, MTG, Bobert wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for money & the bribes they are most likely receiving from the NRA, etc,
I agree, Daniel, getting profit out of education would be a good start, but I don't know how much effect it would have on solving societal ills. Because these days "learning" seems to come from TikTok or X or some other social platform. I would hate to be a teacher facing a classroom full of students staring into their iPhones.
Except that money in politics makes for ever-increasing wealth inequality, creating billionaires with nearly unlimited economic AND political power. Government sets the rules for all.
And let's add getting profit out of health care. When privatization entered the scheme, so did layers of cost, billing and death to those who cannot pay.
I never mentioned anything about Israel or genocide, only about the same thing you, Robert and I agree upon - donors are not qualified to make decisions on academic matters. I don’t need a lecture on what I lived for half a century in academia.
Henry wrote: "donors are not qualified to make decisions on academic matters". exactly right. But the REALITY is: big donors have ALL the power. Higher Education is Big Business. And if I give Harvard a billion dollars, they'll put my name on the Library and give my good-for-nothing kids a red-carpet welcome and fire any administrator I've got a grudge against and hire my wife's cousin's niece.
You’re correct. For a billion dollars, you can get a seat on the board. For a million, they’ll say thank you and give you good seats at the football and basketball games but not let you dictate anything. But your kids will get in for a few more million if they can pose as an athlete. Of course, you might then go to jail - it’s happened.
I don't see the plundering getting much better without changing incentives for corporate leadership and putting better regulatory regimes in place, none of which Congress or anybody else seems to have a desire to do. The system functions as it has been set up to do, whether deliberately or not. We the people have chosen this by choosing our elected officials who tolerate, or even abet these problems. It comes full circle. The buck stops with you and me dear reader, and those who preceded us.
Close but no cigar. Supreme Court decided corporations had freedom of speech and could donate as they will. Neither was a voting issue. though I will grant you that the elected presidents and the senate pass judgment on who gets appointed. Recently it seemed that these appointments were to appease the religious right and not on real interpretation of the constitution. How to game the system of election, before claiming ti was rigged... But then I'm not an expert on the constitution, I've only read it a few times.
Beside the point perhaps... but "shit splatters", as they say (you cannot have a public narrative regarding corruption without public discourse about corruption... which won't be a priority absent public concern about corruption - which itself cannot help but be corrupt to some degree, e.g. per Professor Reich's summary comments in his post).
PS: Two additional reads (one from the 2012 presidential race - which, by way of the candidates' backgrounds, brought the matter to light - and one with some policy prescriptions that are even more overdue now than then):
Rishi, I was not talking about corruption. Everything that I was pointing out about the Private Equity involvement in buying up companies, corporations, health care operations, etc. etc. Has been legal for the past decades. The laws were changed. They need to be altered to not allow what they are doing to the backbone of the US manufacturing, enterprises, and healthcare amongst many others, by reckless profiteering and saddeling what they buy with debt they used to purchase those organizations, to the extent that they are run out of business. Unfortunately not illegal, as it used to be…
Uhh... *weed* is illegal - William Randolph Hearst made sure of it.
= /
"(This is) a continuing moral bankrupting of many institutions based solely on those who have obscene amounts of money."
(People with all the money & political connections somehow wouldn't skew the system to their advantage? Any hypothesis as to how they got and kept that money for generations - say, in a single word...?)
Sad day when the MAGA Republicans and the Zionists determine who is to lead our institutions of higher learning. Going forward, bright students should boycott Harvard.
And viva the Muslims Huh Charles. Islam is more of a threat to diversity, equality, gays and women, than Jews ever were or will be. In fact it was Jews that led the civil rights movement, and the racists hate them for that. There were three men buried in an earth dam, outside of Philadelphia, MS two of them were Jews, one of them was an American descendant of slaves.
How many Muslims have fought and died for civil rights, other than their own.? Muslims don't give a shit about civil rights and equality, other than their own, and Osama bin Laden said" We will use your democracy to destroy you" Islam hates the west, our culture is not compatible with theirs Boko Haram means books are forbidden, or rather western culture is forbidden.
Palestinians are Muslims, save for a mere handful of Christians, who are second class citizens as they are "peoples of the book"
Criticizing Zionism, which means markedly different things to different people, is asking for an accusation of being either anti-Israel’s existence or anti-Semitic regardless of what you actually meant. I doubt you are for removing 7 million Jews for Israel. But that’s what many would think.
*Our* institutions of higher learning are *public* institutions; kudos to those brave souls who "fight the good fight" ("those who can do", after all)... but there are plenty of us who really aren't that surprised when some of these things spill out into the open (would we honestly expect so-called "MAGA Republicans" to be honoring time-tested norms?)...
PS: Bright students never close their own doors (and, if/when they get the support they need, realize that "when some doors close, others open")...
I don’t care what you think of me, but the truth is that the world is witnessing an unspeakable horror, a massive bombing attempting to obliterate the people of Gaza. This is a full scale genocide and our government is complicit. We are witnessing war crimes daily.
Give us a break Charles, You have swallowed Islamic propaganda whole sale, your info is one sided, and you totally lack knowledge of Israel and Islam.
No way is Israel trying to obliterate Muslims, there are billions of Muslims (HAMAS is Muslim FYI) and only 8 million Jews in Israel,
Israel is surrounded by Muslims (Arabs are Muslims and that identity trumps all even Arabness.
on the other hand it is a religious duty of Muslims to obliterate the Jews.
Says on in the HAMAS Charter, says so in Islams sacred Text, the haddith, like the haddith of al Bukhari, sahih (verse) 1295 and 1296, book 56, hadith 139 al Bukhari. quoted in art 7, paragraph 7 of the HAMAS covenant.
Anyone here who recognizes that historically based religion is the culprit? I believe that humanity is one thing; it’s a disgrace to fight about religio-ethnic differences that result in suffering. Anybody agree with me?
I agree Stan, unfortunately the vast majority of the species, has been conned into forming their identity around a religion. So many gods, so little time.
As for the pseudo-religion called "Zionism," it rose to prominence in the 19th century among ethnic "Jews" who wanted nothing to do with (historical) orthodox Judaism -- which they berated and despised. If anything is antisemitic, it is Zionism.
There has been a Jewish community in Palestine for centuries, and they lived at peace with Muslims and Christians -- as did the many vibrant Jewish communities throughout the Muslim world.
Satmar (Yiddish: סאַטמאַר; Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynasty. Following World War II, it was re-established in New York.
Satmar is one of the largest Hasidic dynasties in the world, with some 26,000 households. It is characterized by extreme conservatism, complete rejection of modern culture, and fierce anti-Zionism. Satmar sponsors a comprehensive education and media system in Yiddish, and its members use Yiddish as a primary language. The sect also sponsors and leads the Central Rabbinical Congress, which serves as an umbrella organization for other very conservative, anti-Zionist, and mostly Hungarian-descended ultra-Orthodox communities. (wikipedia)
Christianity has it's pacifists (Quaker and Amish) and Catholicism had it's dissenters
we call them Protest ants.
Apparently the Satmar Jews, who number only 26,000 didn't have to suffer the holocaust, safely ensconsed in NY.
Thanks for the info, but how many Satmar Jews were incarcerated, and how many survived? Between the two of us, I've always questioned how so many infants, babies and toddlers survived the camps and the final solution, when there was a selection at the station where the guards separated men from women and babies. You would think that the first to perish in such conditions would be precisely the ones that have survived into their 70's, 80's and 90's
How did this Grand Rebbe survive? It would seem that he would be a prime target for the gas chamber.
Then again maybe he survived by being a Judas goat, a capo.
All universities should be publicly funded. That would prevent zillionaires from controlling operations. In addition, it’s difficult to comprehend that those three university presidents should present a legalistic answer to a simple question about intent for genocide. Evidently before the hearing, they consulted with their legal departments, who advised them to equivocate. Big mistake: you don’t provide a legalistic answer when the situation demands a common-sense answer.
We have to vote out repubs in order to get rid of Citizens United and McCutcheon. Dem tried some years back in the senate. Every R (except for two abstentions) voted no.
we're all waiting to see whether things have now tipped so far that there is no return to normal. How do we return to a media landscape where many of the outlets don't preach some form of sedition ? How do we roll back the influence of money on our elected officials so that they start doing the right things to curtail corruption ? How long before the Supreme Court can be changed to one that supports democratic principles instead of undermining them ? Montesquieu wrote that a state may change in 2 ways: through correcting itself, or through corruption. Which will it be ?
EXACTLY! Then we won’t have Ted Cruz wasting taxpayers money (nearly $200,000 annually) recite Mary Had a Little Lamb for 12 hours or so. That was just UNBELIEVABLE! A grown man that is supposed to be responsible and put the country’s best interest ahead of such juvenile pettiness. I don’t know how he gets voted back in unless it is rigged in his favor (like Trump tried to do in Georgia. But luckily there was a recording and they are STILL debating it).
I agree that all national campaigns should be publicly funded... and I'll add that state campaigns should be funded by each state.
I prefer that private colleges... especially those founded by religious groups should be privately funded. No Federal or State money should go to religiously sponsored institutions. And, I am a graduate of one such institution.
I’ve written a letter to our lousy local newspaper that political debates should be broadcast exclusively on public radio and TV. That would demand zero dollars from the candidates. However, the newspaper wasn’t interested in my idea and failed to print it. Let’s face it: it’s all about money and influence.
I agree that a legalistic answer was not appropriate, but I doubt that a common sense answer would have been sufficient. I think that a political response was called for. Not easy when the situation was a five hour grilling by a hostile US House (i.e. Republican) committee. And the crucial part came from a very hostile, Harvard educated, NY Republican Congresswoman.
What a wonderful idea. But...I'll rain on this parade...the right wing Christian Nationalists, and all other "claimed" religious sects will demand their school vouchers and....
Not that simple. Some universities were founded on religious principles. I am a graduate of one such school (Baylor). As usual, the answers to a given question problem are usually complex.
Hell! We were worried about elementary schools teaching pole dancing!
And book bans. And slavery that was actually an apprenticeship for blacks who could learn a trade. We were worried about the outright disgust thrown in faces of LGBTQ+. students in public schools. For crying out loud! Why pay all that money for a Harvard education if the students are not allowed to have free speech? The wealthy know they are the powerful. Everything touched by greed fails. Greed is the most corrosive solvent known to man. Good bye, Harvard.
There is plenty to worry about when it comes to book bans. IF they stifle important historical knowledge. And if they cause LGBTQ kids to kill themselves.
But there is a laudable and lovely movement now called "I Read Banned Books" (I think it is) which I hope will help to keep thoughts of young people free, seen and heard, and well informed about their history and the history of people unlike themselves.
It is the right call. I usually agree with you. But not here. Never mind the real issues in her research, if a leader of the world's greatest private university cannot speak clearly about standing firm on rampant anti-Semitism, she should not lead. It is naïve to think that deep-pocketed (and even modest donors) don't want to have a sound leader who can represent their alma mater and basic decency.
Few if any of these pro Palestinian students at Harvard and other universities were actually advocating genocide. You can argue about their rhetoric, but this looks like a case of pro Israel donors wanting to penalize or limit pro Palestinian arguments and viewing uninhibited criticism of Israel as inherently antisemitic.
DINNYC, whether they are openly advocating genocide of the Jews, only demonstrates that what passes as higher education is a fraud. For they lack not only knowledge, thus ignorant, curiosity, are easily swayed and brainwashed and lack critical thinking skills, all it takes to motivate them is to have some idiot or fifth columnist to imprint themselves on their psyche and worse they are lemmings, that are so desirous of peer approval, that they will follow the loud mouth "leader" over a cliff.
Ms Gay, well being an American Descendant of Slaves, had her own cross to burn.
Correct me if necessary, but I believe that ex-President Gay is either a Haitian immigrant, or a descendant of Haitian immigrants. Whether they were ever slaves doesn't seem to be relevant to me.
Are you trying to controversialize the motives of descendants of slaves, and if so, why? Your comment seems to be an affirmation of the institution of slavery.
Hardly an affirmation of the institution of slavery, But an observation that Blacks are treated and viewed differently in America. people of color who are not American Descendants of Slaves, are looked upon and treated differently than Americans who are American Descendants of Slave. Except maybe what Malcolm X called House slaves, for instance Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker, Kanye, and Candace Owens who have one thing in common, white spouses or boy/girl friends and subsequently Quislings,Stephens in Django Unchained. There are gay Quislings also, like Peter Thiel, and Log Cabin Republicans, and over 40% of Republican Women are Quislings as well. Check out this chart:https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/gender-composition/by/state/among/party-affiliation/republican-lean-rep/
Don't know what a Quisling is, google it. A Quisling is one who sells out their own people, for power as a sock puppet for what they perceive as the power structure and the route to power, money and protection.
Do you want to take me to task some more, have at it.
As regards Gay, yes there was racism involved in the mix, especially as launched by Rufo and his right wing clones. Her main sin, was her failure to denounce the HAMASian genocide of Jews.
Um, no. Widespread numbers of "pro-Palestinian" (or what seems to be, pro-Hamas) students are adopting terrorist talking points and carrying signs calling for the elimination of the Jewish State. It takes a special level of denial or dishonesty to just blame "rich" donors, which seems like code for Jewish donors or to sweep reality aside to fit your narrative.
Hamas/Israel is such a complicated situation. I have two close friends who are very conservative/orthodox Jews who have lived off and on in Israel for the past 40 years. They have lots of family there. They are intelligent people, but they are blind to Israel's role in this whole mess. Wish we could turn the clock back 80 years and do a better job of establishing the state of Israel without oppressing the people of Gaza. I truly believe that the people who criticize Israel also criticize Muslim countries. They are all racists towards anyone who isn't lily white. Hamas is horrible, but so is Bebe.
so the 2 women in that exchange have been forced out. but not the male. i do think he gave a "better" answer, slightly so, but still i see a concerted effort to harass women here.
Oh please, if women can't manage the public safety of students at a university, they don't deserve to have the job. When people are throwing smoke bombs at the campus police, the job of the university president is to protect the safety of the staff and the students. Feminism means that women can be strong and manage a campus just as much as men.
No Robert, the dangerous precedent was set when they didn’t fire her after discovering and confirming her mendacious and duplicitous educational journey — and for the incompetence in how she handled the response to Hamas’ sadistic, joy-filled killing spree on October 7.
Yes and the sadistic annihilating inhuman, joyful terrorism continues to be rained down on innocents by the political masters of Israel too.
Wherever over the decades has been the “common sense” amongst them and those distant across the Atlantic , to work out peaceful cohabitation?
For a people shockingly subject to a planned program of genocide in the middle of the last century, it is breathtakingly incomprehensible that their leaders and followers have been so blinded that they cannot see that they have become perpetrators of the same against another group of people and that it is their own actions in doing so which has created their “ enemy “, Hamas.
The whole heartbreaking situation in that small patch of the planet bordering the Eastern coast of The Mediterranean has been a long weeping ( real tears) painfully festering sore for all who live there; the oppressed, dispossessed, displaced and the suspicious, paranoid descendants of those subjected to that mid 20th century Reign of Terror.
No ancient biblical claim to a piece of land is more sacred than the lives of a people who have lived there for eons.
Fallacious argumentation will not help you or the sadistic, mass murderers you choose to defend. What is happening to innocent Gazans is terrible and unfortunate, but largely unavoidable. War *always* involves injuries and deaths of non-combatants; however, Hamas initiated this war and Israel has every right -- and obligation -- to protect its citizens. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/on-strategy-law-and-morality-in-israel-s-gaza-operation
Mass murder by missile is just a little bit sad? Because it’s done from pressing a button from a clinically safe distance?
Open your eyes and see what the rest of the world has seen for decades.
I’m not offering you or anyone else any kind of “ fallacious argument”. No argument at all, more observations garnered over at least the last 50 years. 😟
I do not defend any “ mass murderers” of any origin.
Try to step out of your bubble and think about what bought 7th Oct about. What lay the groundwork for the creation of Hamas?
You think it’s OK to murder women and children and non Hamas supporting Palestinian males just because they’re killed by a missile smashing into their apartment block.
Death is death & terror is terror. Do you think the people in Gaza have not been living in terror since October?
Suffering and ultimately death due to starvation, dehydration, spread of disease, is a form of torture and it seems the “ safe No attack areas” that Gazan’s are being letter dropped to move to... like moving humans around like game pieces on a board, in order to save their lives, ... don’t actually exist.
And how do you know that the Hamas on 7 Oct were “ joyful”?
My first response to the Hamas attack was that this would be dire for the Gazans - who have not had an easy time living under Israeli occupation and blockades for decades in a situation described by many as "Apartheid." When I lived in and attended college in Israel in 1967-68 beginning just a few days after the end of the "Six Day War," movement between Israel and the West Bank was free and open. I know because I went there often. That's not been the case for many, many decades.
However "Dire" has scaled new and unimaginable heights in Gaza now.
Regarding Dr Gay's incomplete citations, the NYT presented a number of them. IMO they were perhaps shoddy, but in each case cited, if she didn't directly quote the source, they were included in the bibliography.
As to the hearing before Congress, this was a hit piece orchestrated by the Trump wing. Although I didn't hear the entire testimony, I heard enough to understand that the university leaders were trying to thread the needle between free speech and righteous condemnation. One of the pillars of university is to promote freedom of expression, as this is how new thoughts are examined and tested.
So I heard nothing wrong with the testimonies given, when heard in full context rather than cherry-picked as the media/social media is alt to do.
Finally, again IMO, the idea that one can't be pro-Jewish/Israel without fully supporting any and everything the Israeli government wants to do is silly. The Israeli government under Netanyahu has done much harm for their own cause, often with the support of US policy. This must come to an end. Support Israel's right to exist, YES. Give them a blank check to do whatever they wish, including wiping Palestinians off the map, NO.
The problem with that argument is that is IS Hamas' sworn goal to wipe a Jewish Israel off the map, a goal they have relentlessly worked towards for 40 years, a goal funded with BILLIONS in cash and arms from the Muslim world. Israel isn't fighting 2M in Gaza: they are fighting a majority of the 1B Muslims world wide who have embraced the lie that Palestinians are the rightful occupants of those lands. To believe that you have to be both historically ignorant and willfully prejudiced.
There are numerous problems with your arguments: U.N. resolutions going back to 1948, the Zionist movement which has always been present and now controls the Israeli government, the idea that Israel is a democracy yet makes Palestinians second (or no) class citizens, the blind eye by government officials toward violence in the West Bank against peaceful Palestinians who have lived there for centuries, the ongoing a d ever-increasing attempt to push Palestinians off of the land and continuance to build settlements against U.N. resolutions in the West Bank, the funneling of money with Netanyahu's approval to Hamas both the "placate" and to undermine the PLO....not to mention the seemingly endless amounts of money we give to Israel with "no strings attached. You are the one who isn't"historically ignorant and willfully prejudiced".
I am QUITE WELL-VERSED on the history of this conflict. It is complex and not nearly as simple as you make it out to be. Neither the Arab world nor the Israeli government are without fault now or in the past. The question is how to move forward in a way likely to bring peace and stability. Killing more Palestinians and Arabs is not the way forward from a moral standpoint nor is it in the long-term interests of the United States nor the world.
You cite U.N. resolutions going back to 1948 - but what about the UK's role in creating countries? Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc? What about ALL the countries of the Americas? All formed by European powers after subjugating indigenous peoples through war, disease, effective (and actual) slavery rendering those people 2nd class citizens.
History, as you admit, is replete with instances like this - yet too often Israel is cited as though it were an anomaly.
And while Muslims, Baha'i, Christians, etc may chafe at being in a theocracy - they are tolerated and given rights unheard of for minorities in totalitarian countries like most of the Muslim world, China, Russia, N Korea, etc.
How many Jews have those rights in countries outside Europe & the Americas?
Sorry, but your attempts to make it seem that TINY Israel with it's miniscule population is a threat is absurd.
"Palestinians have lived there for centuries" but who ARE Palestinians?
Historically people in Palestine have been Jews, Christians, Muslims, Baha'i, etc etc etc.
Genetically? NOT Arab. Those in the Gaza Strip ARE now predominantly Arab but only because the 150,000-200,000 Palestinian Muslims who moved there then married with Arabic people effectively imported to swell the population 10X over a time period when the world's population went up only 3X. Another Hamas agenda: an endless supply of canon fodder.
It is a Hamas agenda to paint a picture of a homogenous Muslim land that was destroyed by foreign influence in 1948. Palestine was NEVER homogenous, not ethnically and not religously.
Yes the BIG question IS "how to move forward in a way likely to bring peace and stability." Unfortunately as long as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, etc continue to support Hamas, continue to support an agenda to destroy Jewish Israel there cannot be a path forward to peace.
The last 40 years have proven that over and over and over.
And it CERTAINLY isn't in the interest of Israel's long term security. If Israel continues down this path, it will squander what little good will the world has remaining for it and is risking the loss of US continued support.
Whereas Hamas will never lose the support, financially, militarily, etc of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, etc. So it's a foregone conclusion that Hamas will ultimately achieve their goal to wipe all Jews from their homeland.
BTW that so-called plagiarism is a "nothing burger". It is easily possible that the same basic conclusions were reached by both authors and that therefore their summaries and train of thought would be similar. If there were to be found numerous passages quoting verbatim without citation (as in pages of material--these are only a few thoughts) then I would be more convinced. The examples in the freebeacon are on very generic topics of interest to anyone in the field of study. Let's see some examinations of entire works to see the whole picture. If only a dozen or so "examples" can be found over a course of 20+ years of writing out of context of the works as a whole, that is in the realm of possibility of either coincidental thought/conclusions of scholars in the same field reading the same sources.
I can read. I just came to a different conclusion. If more complete evidence comes to light, I'm open to changing my opinion. So far I haven't seen anything compelling, though certain political operatives (as in the freebeacon) keep trying. BTW, the NYT was among the first to present some cited questions of Dr Gay's scholarship. Those examples weren't compelling either. You know that Dr Gay had Harvard do a complete review of her works, right???
For example, does Dr Gay use NO citations at all in most of her works? What about bibliographies? I sincerely doubt that she would have even been nominated for Harvard president if her scholarship had been so obviously poor. This would have raised questions (and likely revolt) of any faculty she hoped to lead. Could she have been more forthcoming about some thoughts in her writings which might have come from reading other sources? Perhaps. But at some point a scholar forms his/her own opinions. Just because it matches someone else's opinions (and is expressed similarly) in some cases doesn't automatically scream of plagiarism. The entirety of the person's body of work should be examined, not cherry-picked, as has happened here. It is clear that there was a target put on her back by right winged anti-woke money power brokers.
Precedent? It's the status quo. Rich donors to EVERY institution which relies on donations to thrive have always expected to have influence - and in general receive it.
Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, you name a university in which that is not the case - and it's not limited to education.
At Harvard just 100 years ago major donors exerted their influence to keep out undesirables such as women (50.4% of US population), black (14.6%)s, Jews (2.4%) etc.
At least we don't live in a totalitarian system like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Trumpistan...
Worse it shows that rich donors want control of the university and to hell with the stated administration and stated oversight. The rich with their money want control of everything
Rich donors to EVERY institution which relies on donations to thrive have always expected to have influence - and in general receive it. Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, you name a university in which that is not the case. And it's not limited to education.
And at Harvard just 100 years ago major donors exerted their influence to keep out undesirables such as women (50.4% of US population), black (14.6%)s, Jews (2.4%) etc.
At least we don't live in a totalitarian system like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Trumpistan...
I find it difficult to believe that there was no other way to resolve this to include open debate. The Corporation sounds painfully ingrown and imbalanced. And, yes, it appears the role of the President has devolved into a glorified fund raiser. And, why? Look at the size of Harvard's endowment?!??! This to me sounds like a lack of courage and moral imagination.
I think this whole episode was a racist vendetta. (And I’m white.) The so-called plagiarism consisted of a missing or misplaced closing quote and one other minor thing. Everyone who has ever typed a paper has made such mistakes.
I would argue that the plagiarism angle is immaterial.
Plagiarism by the head of a higher academic institution is immaterial?
Plagiarism would be. MIs-placed punctuation is not.
Sorry this is not misplaced punctuation. This is lifting whole sentences from other people work. That is plagiarism.
It is possible to plagiarize inadvertently. I write song lyrics, and file them under the band name "Oblivion's Maelstrom", as I intend to found my fourth band as soon as I am able. I am not certain, but I suspect that "Maelstrom of Oblivion" or "Oblivion's Maelstrom" is a term which I might have lifted from Poe during my teen years. I've been trying to find it online for years without success. But if/when I organize my future band, which will be an LLC, someone might come along with the answer, and an attempt to discredit me could be the result.
I don't know all of the details of the plagiarism issue, but it seems unlikely that a Harvard President would jeopardize her career deliberately. Without knowing the details, I am in favor of erring on the side of regarding this as a mistake unless or until I know more.
As Tom Nicholls of the Atlantic wrote: But these new revelations about Gay’s work seem to show a pattern that is too damning to ignore and transcends excuses about sloppiness or accidents.
It’s a lame excuse to weakly cover the deed. I’m actually sorry for her, but it was her behavior, and her comment
I think I would do worse if I was interrogated in a (Republican) House hearing for five hours.
They were selected for their exceptional qualities!
Well, I guess it depends exactly on what those "exceptional" qualities might be...The Corporation elected her in and then canned her. Do you think the donors would have ever chosen John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the American Dr. Syndney Wolfe - relentless consumer advocate and fierce adversary of drug companies and the FDA?
They who? Is this more of Bill Ackman’s DEI racism. May it backfire and may Israel be held to account for its war crimes.
Me too. But they didn't make me president of a university recently.
Ok, I think I understand what you are saying. Let me put it another way. If someone makes a mistake after five hours of grilling, is that really an indicator of inadequacy?
Note: After UPenn president resigned, Stefanik said "One down, two to go" and after the Harvard president resigned she said "Two down". Other GOP politicians said "Two down, one to go".
I am not qualified to say whether the presidents should or should not have resigned. But what happened looks like a witch hunt to me.
And what does this mean for the future of education in our country? I am worried that it will deteriorate.
It was the Zionist powers that be trying to crush criticism of Israel’s war crimes, shocked that the world is not fainting when they label all criticism as antisemitic. It is also Bill Ackman’s racism.
I agree. And as Robert has pointed out it is also a heinous abuse of their monetary power. These individuals should be called out as being responsible for the any innocent Jewish individuals and groups that may suffer anti semitic violence as a consequence of their over reach.
"Her comment" seems to have been nothing more than an incomplete comprehension of the term "intifada", which I believe simply means "uprising", or "resistance". Could you have done better?
This was about silencing criticism if Israel’s war crimes and Bill Ackman’s racism.
As I recall the three university presidents were coached by one of the "Big Law" law firms on how to answer the questions as if this was a litegic situation with litegic answers. That was their first mistake. They took a defensive attitude and it showed. As an observer I felt they were not interested in protecting the students threatened. They were interested in protecting themselves.
"Stefanik then asked the presidents whether calls for intifada against Jews on campus violated the codes of conduct or harassment policies at their universities.
Gay temporized. “It can be,” she said, “depending on the context.”"
That answer gives me no confidence in the abilities of Gay to govern. She should have been forced to resign for giving that answer. The thing is, the "Corporation" knew she said that as a result of the coaching of the lawyers hired by the three universities to coach them. Because of that, which was the fault of Gay's employer's who hired the lawyers, they could not fire her. The plagiarism situation was a different issue but added to the lack of confidence alumni and students had in her abilities. When the student member of the Harvard Honor Council stated that her appointment was the result of a "double standard," one standard for her and one for students, I knew she was "toast."
Her incidents of plagiarism were not punctuation mistakes as some other commenter said earlier. There were, according to
a complaint received by Harvard University on December 19, an outline of more than 40 allegations of plagiarism against Ms Gay.
The two issues should have either gotten her fired or never appointed to the post of President of the University to begin with.
That major donors were very public about their feeling in regard to Ms. Gay is true. That their pressure on the Corporation to remove her had to have influenced the Corporation.
My point is, if the Corporation had integrity and a true sense of ethics, none of the donors' public outcries as well as the statement made by the student member of the Honor Committee would have been necessary in order for the Corporation to force her to resign.
Way too many "shoulds" here - adds up to speculation as to motivations by all concerned. Please characterize what a perfect Pres "should" have done and compare to previous cases.
And, by the way, "an outline of more than 40 allegations" from a self-defined biased source does not constitute evidence.
The beat goes on ...
One of the student members of Harvard's Honor Code Committee has anonymously stated that there is a double standard in regard to Dr. Gay. That Dr. Gay would have been asked to withdraw from the University had she been a student based on the evidence already presented. When I read that I knew Dr. Gay would resign which she did the day after I read that.
There are o viously two different issues at play in regard to Dr. Gay. One had been around in a low level way for a while, her plagiarism. The other very recent, her statements regarding what constituted a threat to what should be a safe place for Harvard students that are Jewish. She has failed to meet the proper standards she should be meeting with regard to either issues.
No, it’s complete bullshit. The people who are in danger are Palestinians. Not the Jewish students who might actually have to hear about Israel’s war crimes. The other people who are in danger are Americans, who are having their free speech rights, violated and attacked by Zionist.
OK. But isn't this yet another example of evaluating the role of university president by comparing to a completely different role, in this case that of a student? And is it not possible that "evidence" and "speech" and "actions" are being muddled into a pudding of excuses for political control over expressions of opinions?
As a king once said, "it's a puzzlement".
Calls for intifada against Jews o campus or Jews in general is definitely antisemitism. Calls for intifada against the Netanyahu government and the bulk of oppression and genocidal behavior of the Jewish state of Israel are not. Intifada means "uprising," and could better be described as resistance than genocide.
"From the River to the Sea" chanted on the Harvard campus means from the river to the sea. . . . If Ms. Gay needs "context," in the context of Hamas's barbarianism on October 7th, the meaning is unambiguous.
Parsing like a litigation attorney doesn't cut it.
She doesn't cut it. It's good for Harvard she's gone.
I know you’ve heard of the concept of free speech? Palestine will be free from the river to the sea is about Palestinians. It’s not about Zionist. But while you were focusing on bullshit, Israel has murdered 30,000 Palestinian civilians. Your eyes are in the wrong place. You’re tripping over mouse turds when people are being murdered. And FYI the conflict dates back from 1948. Nothing started on October 7.
Calls for Intifada are not calls for genocide for Jews, and are not antisemitic.
They are calls for Israel to quit murdering Palestinian civilians
Exactly.
Makes perfect sense; I was disappointed to see a big "nothing" on your Substack newsletter. Or your Substack "tabletop." Do you read anybody? Feel free to read mine then, Thompson.
Oooops I see John Thompson DOES have eight "reads" so I made the whole thing. The man ain't so empty aftuh all. Oooooops repeat)
For some reason I'm listed as having a Substack newsletter. I don't know how that happened, but I don't have one. Yes, I do read a number of people, and have commented frequently on other sites as well. And the state of Israel is a political entity that has for long violated the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people, whose homeland was coopted to found that state. Even Ben Gurion noted that the Arabs could not but hate them in light of what was being done to them. As such, I believe the world, and especially America, should hold Israel to the highest standards, and make our political and economic, and especially military support conditional on their acceptance of at least a two-state solution. And Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. People of conscience are outraged, and they should be.
Stefanik lied and said Intifada and Palestine will be free from the river to the sea means genocide for Jews, which is just asinine. The whole point of the December 5 hearing was to silent student protest about Israel’s war, crimes and focus instead upon Zionist students getting their feelings hurt by Israel being criticized. Ignore the genocide, but don’t hurt our feelings by talking about genocide.The actual genocide, the targeting of civilians, children, refugee camps, evacuation routes, hospitals, aid worker. Israel is an apartheid terrorist state and we need to get beyond the false label of antisemitism for any criticism of its horrendous behavior. Israel has bulldozed live people, engaged in summary executions and organ theft. May they be held accountable for their crimes.
You've got it exactly right, Dorothea. The "beasts" in this conflict are the Israeli government and defense forces. And there is no dearth of Israeli citizens that see it exactly like that.
It appears that she mis-spoke. I believe that the term "intifada" simply means "uprising".
I agree.
You wrote, "...a complaint received by Harvard University on December 19, an outline of more than 40 allegations of plagiarism against Ms Gay."
There were four allegations, not forty, and they were resolved at President Gay's request.
". . . they were resolved at President Gay's request."
Those four were corrected AFTER they were outed. If you think that's how the Honor Code Committee metes out enforcement to the student body of Harvard, you need to do some research you have obviously not yet done.
Wrong.
You should google what I said instead of sharing your lack of knowledge.
"The professor had previously filed a complaint to Harvard's Research Integrity Officer on Dec. 19 alleging more than 40 instances of plagiarism, many of which had already been reported by the Free Beacon, the New York Post, and conservative activist Christopher F. Rufo."
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/plagiarism-allegations-gay-resigns/#:~:text=The%20professor%20had%20previously%20filed,conservative%20activist%20Christopher%20F.%20Rufo.
Agreed
Terry, an unproven accusation of plagiarism shouldn’t be dispositive.
It was proven. There is significant findings which would seem to easily breach Harvard's standards.
Show me proof. I’ve seen allegations, no news of academic conclusions.
Not so. A student member of the Honor Code Committee which reviews possible breaches of the Code says Gay is the beneficiary of a double standard that would penalize a student had they done the same things. It is said she lifted verbatim a half page of another author's paper on the same subject without using quotation marks or attribution.
I have not seen a public show of support by colleagues of her work or a defense against the more substantive plagiarism charges and I'm not talking about any punctuation issues.
I doubt she would wanted to go up before a formal revue so, she resigned.
Take a look at the dozens of articles out there. Even Harvard students demand that she be held to the standard that they are held to.
Harvard's standards? How do you account for the fact that Bush the Lesser is a Yale grad???
No, she is not perfect. Neither am I. Are you?
Being a former student is nowhere the same as being the front and central leader of the University. At this point you are grasping at straws.
Dr Gay could of just not attended - like Columbia (their President had a “conflict” (to the judicial hearings).
Meg...Or all of the university presidents could have ignored their invitations to testify like all the republican representatives ignored their subpoenas to testify before the J6 committee..
The Republican way - not honor subpoenas, for that manner not honor the law, the constitution, their constituents, even they conscience.
AMEN
Beyond the point. Irrelevant. She did participate and as a president of such institution should not have failed so lamentably.
"failed"
She saw the fabled handwriting on the ivy-covered wall.
why in God's name would you do that? Do you think a university president should not be concerned with such things and that universities should not either and that anyone can just take anything from any source without attribution?
Ask not what you can steal from your country, ask what your country has stolen from you ( <-Parody of JFK statement)
What's the difference between plagiarism and the plagiarism angle?
The difference is, one is plagiarism and the other is a charge of plagiarism that may or may not be true.
That’s the difference.
Now, like Prof. Reich, I have not studied the facts of the plagiarism charge — someone here said it was a careless citation, not s substantive one. Others say it rises to the level of actual plagiarism, especially given her academic status . I’m not making a statement about that …
But you asked the difference between “plagiarism” and “the plagiarism angle,” and the one would be a real gripe, if validated. The other would be a subterfuge, if not validated.
Got it?
Absolutely not. If it is a possibility, she likely could have "written" those pieces prior to the programs to scan for plagiarism. This should be completely checked out. Ethics and integrity are important. If she's guilty, she should be banned from working with students. I don't want my child working with a cheater who can't do their own work and is a fraud.
Trump is a cheater in all aspects of his life and he was voted in as president!
You are making a tu quogue or “you too” argument. It doesn’t matter who has committed the same or more serious offenses, the evidence shows that Dr Gay committed plagiarism. We have to reject “whataboutism” from all sides.
Then you presumably reject Trump unequivocally. Good.
I was speaking to the trend, what seems to be happening today in our country.
But it does seem democrats are hit much harder than Republicans for much more atrocious criminal behavior. The democrats get thrown out for less yet so many support Trump who essentially committed treason & murder (those death’s wouldn’t have happened if Trump hadn’t called the armed people to ‘go to the Capitol and fight like HELL’.
Then we have a debate over whether he did anything wrong? It’s so obvious he did!
Plagiarism should be clearly checked out. Any leader of students should be ethical and have utmost integrity. Students need to have adults they can model. The behavior of many congress members is atrocious. A code of ethics and behavior should be established. Our youth is learning horrendous behavior characteristics by watching "criminals" getting wealthy and taxpayers paying their way.
Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson should be removed for interference/participating in an attempted interference of an election.
Agree on all points.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/harvard-president-claudine-gay-hit-with-six-new-charges-of-plagiarism/
Yeah, I get it. My point was that her comments reference the anti-semitism on her campus were damning enough.
Right: that shows that her enemies were grasping at straws. However, her inept answer sealed her coffin.
This is what Gay actually said. I don't think most commenters know what she said.
Several days after the Hamas attack, Gay released a statement condemning the “terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” and affirming that “no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York asked Gay if Harvard would take disciplinary action against students or applicants who say “from the river to the sea” or “intifada,” the Arabic word for “uprising.”
The two terms are sometimes used at pro-Palestinian protests and Stefanik argued that the use of “intifada” in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is “a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews.”
Gay said that while she did see that speech as “abhorrent” and “at odds with the value of Harvard,” the university still embraces “a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”
When that speech crosses into conduct that violates Harvard’s policies against bullying and harassment, or incites violence or threatens safety, then action is taken, she said.
So at a university, she supports free expression. How horrible! Stefanik, who is a strong supporter of trump, mis defined those terms to try to hurt these women. She supports trump who is a real anti-semite. No one bothers to point that out.
Thank you. How could her response be questioned as anything but responsible, let alone anything worthy of being fired. Powerful, monied, arrogant, toxic men are the problem.
Don't forget Stephanik
William, Stefanik is one of Trump's favorite kinds of women, a misogynist who hates women almost as much as he does. She is a jerk who likes to do a gotcha on people so her Fox friends can take it further, maligning, misquoting, and deliberately misinterpreting what those attacked women have said. It works well for her because it has made her look "strong" or something that MAGAs really like. There are other women in the Trump stable who have the same misogynistic qualities: Powell, Conway, maybe Nikki Haley, and a set of red-state female governors who despise their "fellow" women and will disparage and undermine them whenever possible. Stefanik is nasty and has a loud mouth as well as an Ivy League education, so that gives her some additional traction, but no more credibility. She is what she is, but the worst players in this "game" are the rich men who think they have a right to do harm to women in power because their money gives them permission. It shouldn't, but as long as money is the factor that determines one's worth in our society right now, things will probably not get better as soon as needed.
Well said, Ruth. I so often wish there were a system to provide multiple likes here.
I would like to forget her. She is my rep and a total embarrassment to her constituents. She is untruthful, mean spirited, and a carpet bagger from the start, using her parent's summer home address, all the while campaigning in the district with Virginia plates on her car. Don't get me going on the fact that she is a puppet for Trump. She has no idea of Harvard's motto "Veritas". Truth is not in her vocabulary.
My sincere sympathies.
Stefanik is as toxic as they come!!!
Amen, my sister. All four adjectives (and the noun) go on and on and ...
I think Stefanik targeted Gay in a racist manner. She twisted the context to trap Gay. Stefanik is trump’s sycophant and her actions are racist and misogynistic. However, Gay was walking the line between free speech and hate speech and her response was not nearly strong enough.
The fact that the wealthy board members are using their leverage to fire the presidents is intrusive and very troubling indeed.
She asked the same exact question to 2 WHITE presidents as well.
And what exactly did they say? 🤔 what they thought was wanted as answers by the questioner?
How is that relevant to this discussion? Kati Kertesz claimed that Gay was targeted because of her race. That is obviously untrue because Stefanik asked the exact same question to the 2 WHITE presidents so its clear that this had nothing to do with race.
I tend to disagree on the point regarding the concept of protected speech. Students have issued outrageous statements without challenge on campuses like Harvard and Penn. Not measured statements condemning the attacks by Hamas while also condemning the violence against civilians, many of them children, in Gaza. Their statements shift all the blame to Israel. They outwardly support Hamas and Palestinians.
Take these same students and shift the context to 9/11. Can anyone imagine the backlash against speech from student protesters who supported the hijackers, the Taliban, and Osama Bin Laden? Imagine the claims of American imperialism for having our soldiers on Saudi Arabian soil despoiling the lands near Mecca. No one would have allowed such speech without repercussions.
Antisemitism is growing in America. These so-called leaders from MIT and formerly of Harvard and UPenn did a shameful job of not condemning the speech from the students who went past the line. They allowed Jewish students to feel intimidated and uncomfortable on their own campuses. They failed to push back and draw the line. They failed to bring people together to learn from each other. They failed to quell hot passion with reason.
Your comparison is not valid.
Palestinians had nothing to do with 9-11, the hijackers, or the Taliban. Intifada literally means to wake up, shake up oneself, uprise. It was a response of NATIVE resistance to Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank beginning in 1987.
(See Oxford Dict.). Ask yourself: why do you only hear that the state of Israel "has a right to defend itself"? Why not the native Palestinians whose land has kept being taken to be given to the immigrants (not refugees) who now comprise the bulk of the Israeli population? The Palestinians have every reason to resist their dispossession, displacement and maltreatment by the state of Israel.
Where did I say Palestinians had anything to do with 9/11? Think the point whooshed over your head.
Regarding Palestinians rights since 1987:
Educate us on the number of peaceful agreements entered into by Arafat, the PLO, and the like over the decades before Hamas took control in 2007? And how the Israeli government broke those agreements?
To the best of my knowledge, two-state solutions have been sought and negotiated, and Arafat actually walked away from at least one of them thinking he could get a better deal.
Then we have the right-wing Israelis who assassinated their own leader to prevent a two state solution. Few hands are clean here as neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are monolithic.
I can condemn the actions by settlers under Netanyahu at the same time I condemn the Hamas attacks on Israel while at the same time condemning Israel’s war crimes in Gaza since October.
Who from the Palestinians in Gaza can be negotiated with? The terrorists in Hamas who don’t say they’re only for a free and peaceful state, but actually add they encourage violence for the destruction of Israel?
If Israel laid down all their arms and declared peace for all tomorrow, they’d be annihilated. They do have a right to defend themselves. And the Palestinians have a right to build a life in Gaza. They’ve allowed warlords and terrorists to operate and promote hatred for Jews. How many regions in the world have required the UN to operate camps and aid for 75 years? Palestinians should take some responsibility. They should condemn the sexual violence against innocents Hamas conducted. All I hear are excuses for how it’s all justified somehow because it was done to end Israeli oppression.
Somehow I don’t think attacking civilians and provoking an invasion by a superior military force is creating the ending Palestinians people want.
You completely overlook the backlash against Muslim students. They are being doxxed and blacklisted.
You mean the students who made the outrageous statements that weren’t condemned by Gay that got her fired?
You mention them being Muslim. I don’t think support for Palestine is limited to Muslims and Palestinians. For example, there are liberal American Jews calling for the end of genocide and free Palestine as well.
There's more than one side to the issue but that isn't often recognized.
Gay was a poor choice to lead Harvard. The error has been corrected. The large quantity of political bovine fecal matter being spread on this distracts people from the basic facts of her inactions, inabilities and so forth. Time to move on, to work to improve the intellectual atmosphere at Harvard.
Good point. I didn’t know she put out that announcement. It does seem to be a trap.
Yes, Gay’s reply was her mistake in the forum she was in.
You are misrepresenting the facts. She was asked a hypothetical about calling fro the genocide of Jews
Most people on this thread (and elsewhere in "reporting" haven't taken the time to fully research what Gay said/didn't say OR what the line of cherry-picked questioning took place at the committee hearing in question. This is a large part of what is tearing our nation apart---such little regard for real truth nor being bothered with taking time to research full facts. As a retired teacher, we have failed to sufficiently teach critical thinking.
But that is EXACTLY what Stefanik & company are seeking.
The answer wasn't as inept as it is being presented. Go read what she actually said. She made the mistake of allowing Stepanik to define the terms and she mis defined them to damage the presidents. Stepanik supports anti semitism, she supports trump.
This has nothing much to do with her or their answers. It's about power and who gets to wield it, display it, and so send a message to others about it so they "tow the line".
" Sure, you may think you have power and independence, but it is conditional upon the grace of others, and don't you dare forget it."
It’s “toe the line.” I’m not criticizing you personally, but of the several times I have seen that phrase in comments over the last few years, every one of them had it wrong. A boat tows a line to pull a skier. People line up submissively, putting their toes on a line drawn on the ground by their leader.
You're right; it's a common mistake, I have probably seen the mistake often and repeat it without thought. Another one I have seen is people saying bought instead of brought, for some reason.
See this where the Atlantic writer thinks it right that Gay step down for plagiarism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/01/the-daily-2023/676999/
But I stand by my remark that this whole episode wasn"t really about whether she plagiarized or not. It was a setup from the beginning.
How about what's "coming down the pike" or "coming down the pipe"?
“Pike” is the original but “pipe” is excusable, since it resembles “it’s in the pipeline.” Not sure how many people know what a “pike” is anymore (a kind of road).
Thanks for that!
steve reed, I think you are right. Things are not always as they appear. Rampant egos obsessively need to control others and create conflict to show/prove their superiority. This situation shows the rampant egos of the politicians and the donors and the people they control and exploit.
Tragic
Stepanik is like the cynical female lawyer hired to defend an obviously guilty rapist that was caught in the act who blames the victim due to what she wore.
Just to clarify. Stefanik is not a lawyer. She never set foot in any law school.
Naw, she wasn't his type.
William, isn't it ironic that the loudest voices supposedly in favor of Israel are really, themselves antisemitic? This was just an issue to let rich mostly white men flex their monetary muscles and do it against women in power when they believe they can justify it. Very clever because most people won't actually care and the rest will go with the side that has the most money which means those guys are certainly right to do whatever they did. What will be their next "problem issue" and who will be their target?
Spot on Ruth. The republican Fascist party can make their biggest enemy their friend if it suits their purpose.
Imagine how it was to be questioned for 5 hours by that a__hole with an agenda.
The requirement of a university president — or a president of anything else — is to be a master of rhetoric. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Stephanik wanted nothing more then to have it all devolve into a political fight. They were wise enough not to do that. After all, if you lie down with pigs, you start to smell like them and Stephanik is starting to smell a lot like trump.
William, you are right on this one. The challenge, Stefanik wants the power through bullying rather than knowledge and understanding. She doesn't get it that if her loved Donald gets into power, she will just be a tool as long as she is willing to be his obedient hen, just like the other women in Trump's chicken coop, produce the eggs or you're gone.
Of course, the university presidents remained above it all — to their peril. I suppose that we don’t need to worry about their future. They’ll probably join boards of directors and make plenty of money — even though they quibble about genocide. Weird, the world we live in.
She stood for free expression. What isn't mentioned is that there's a lot of Islamophobia going on also.
Yes, there are lots of members of particular religious cults, denominations, and so on, who hate others based on ideology. For example, Missouri Lutherans deny that Evangelical Lutherans are actually Lutherans. When will this madness stop? Historical religion is the culprit. I recommend the film by Slavoj Zizek called “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology”; it will remind you of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”
Except that Harvard doesn't believe in free expression. They finished dead last in FIREs free speech rankings, https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-fires-college-free-speech-rankings
The same Claudine Gay who fired Ronald Sullivan for representing Harvey Weinstein can't claim that she is for free expression.
She stood the heat but then the monied interests threatened to pull their money from the university. They demanded her ouster and the university did not stand up to them.
She should have consulted with her donors before the hearing instead of with her legal department.
I hope that's a joke. Just let the money rule the day.
Stand the Trumped up abuse, you mean.
Giving someone like Elise S a lever might be construed as inept in some circles. Just saying.
Huh?? his son-in-law is a Jew. you are an idiot. Stop asserting falsehoods as though they are truth. You people who hate Trump just attirbute anything you think is a bad characteristic to him.
Just because drumpf had a member of his family marry a Jewish person; does not prove that the Hitler-lover anti-semite Drumpf is not a bigot.
Yes, he constantly vilifies immigrants yet 2 of his wives were immigrants.
Jaime, hypocrisy should be inserted in the party name, Republican Fascist-Seditionist Hypocrite Party. I’ll have to work on some acronyms.
I don’t think his present wife is too happy with him.
His Daddy participated in at least one pro-Nazi rally in his day. On the other hand, DT had Roy Cohn for a mentor. Kind of a proto-Giuliani, come to think of it.
I think Trump is another Joe McCarthy (1950’s) spewing all sorts of lies about people, stirring the pot. Roy Cohn was his attorney also, he was know as the mafias’s attorney.
McCarthy was finally called out when he attacked the army. He died of alcoholism a few years later. (See Wikipedia)
I hate TUMP and i am proud of it. Everything is BAD about TUMP. There has never been anything good about him. Falsehoods are the only thing he spews every day of the week. I don't give a damn whether you like it or not.
John, Trump qualifies for the death penalty and hard labor is the only acceptable punishment next to that. I prefer whatever causes him the most grief. Anyone who finds ANYTHING likable about a deadly tyrant like trump is not facing reality…just like their orange leader. Most of republican Congress should be removed for sedition as well.
We ALL need to call & email our representatives and tell them to vote against the MAGA policies.
Email the media, the editors!
SeekingReason, i totally agree with you. I can instantly think of some of the worst Congress members, Maggot Traitor Goon, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Mike Johnson... and in the Senate, Tommy Tuberville, Rick Snott, Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz. Those i mentioned are by far the worst ones.
You...You are seeking reason?? You are lost! You miss the point. It is NOT about TRUMP. it is about distorting and misusing the system as you cheer for your view of Justice. This undermines our democracy far more than Trump. He is one person and a shallow one at that. But when you undermine and manipulate our institutions to go after a single person you undercut democracy. You, sir, are without reason. And obviously a typical Democrat. Reason is whatever you say it is. Read Animal Farm and see yourself in it!
What are you DOING to STOP him from winning?
You do realize Jared kushner received almost 3billion $$$$ from the Crown Prince? Why? Very suspicious that the death & dismemberment of JAMAL KHASHOGGI was shelved, and then Jared, a Jew got all this money from our enemy who obviously gave the order.
Elise Stefanik goal and intentional confusing questions in her MAGA GOP performance was designed to confuse, criticize, and distort the answers. Elise and the wealthy Harvard donors exhibit their clear goal was racism. The MAGA GOP like Stefanik used an immaterial mistake as plagiarism to destroy the first black women as President! What a shame that Stefanik was privileged to acquire a Harvard education but to totally waste it on hate and prejudice! It is too sad that the Board’s of these prestigious educational institutes permitted their President’s to be improperly drilled by a MAGA House!
Pardon me, I thought that Americans were paying the MAGA Representatives to govern and not to spread their hate and their divisiveness!
I thought
How is it racism when she asked the EXACT same question to 2 WHITE women presidents and one of them was forced to resign?
https://freebeacon.com/campus/harvard-president-claudine-gay-hit-with-six-new-charges-of-plagiarism/
Yes, those cited “borrowings” should have been identified by footnote.
Atomfemmme: It is not racist. Take a second look at the people in the Corporation.
The popular chant by Islamophiles at Harvard and other Universities is a call to genocide
"Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" is a call to genocide. No matter what one thinks of Israeli "aggression" against the Palestinians, the Islamic goal is genocide of Jews, as Hamas says in it's covenant, the obliteration of Israel, and that my friend entails the genocide of the Jews.
Israel may have been a Jewish state, but it was also secular, open minded had Arab citizens, Arabs voted and occupied seats in the parliament until the radical religious orthodox right wing Jews formed a coalition and the settlers, often with the assistance of the IDF harass and murder west bank Arabs to take possession of their land.
Their Arab brethren in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia don't want them either, and where is the outrage about that.?
Preamble to HAMAS covenant: Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory). That is a call to Genocide, and act 1 was Oct 7, when they massacred up front and personal babies, toddlers, children, women and elderly and where o where is the "outrage" from professors. students and ignorant Islamophiles.
How about Art 7, para 7 of the Covenant, extracted from sacred Islamic text, the haddith of al Bukhari
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).. More genocide, but I guess that doesn't matter, they are only Jews.
Hitler would agree.
Meanwhile the HAMAS "Ministry of Health" lies every day and with every utterance and Professors and feckless students, as well as Martin Griffiths of the UNUnder-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Believes every lie uttered by HAMAS, claiming that it has been verified by "triangulation" whatever that is and triangulated with what. Even the corporate media swallows HAMAS lies, but when it comes to Israel and the IDF they caveat claims of finding HAMAS cells and tunnel entrances under hospitals, they caveat with "unverified", talk about stilted. HAMAS claims are treated like truth, but IDF claims are unverified. Is there a hidden agenda here, say like oil and prices?
There is no excuse for Israel's behavior, I lay this all on the lap of Netanyahu and the Israeli right, they have the same problem we have in the U.S. with Trump and his right wing.
However HAMAS is totally responsible for the death and destruction rained down on them, just like the NAZIs were totally responsible for the death and destruction rained down on Germany.
Incidentally Oct 7, 2023 was also Putin's birthday, and the HAMAS attack, was a birthday gift, and was possible only because of logistic, tactical and planning support by Iran, and guess who is Putin's BBF? Iran of course.
Likud's Founding charter begins:
The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel)
a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.
If "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" is a call to genocide," isn't "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" also a call to genocide? Why is a Palestinian purported "call to genocide" evil, but an Israeli "call to genocide" a "legitimate" political goal?
Maureen, read my comment to Lee. Study Israeli history from the Balfour Declaration to the 1948 agreement Churchill made with Abdullah, to the 1967 war won by Israel to Ariel Sharon removing all of his troops to the disputed land to 4 presidents giving the Palestinians 99% of what they wanted to Putin, Iran and Hamas efforts to commit Israeli genocide!
Actually, my views are based on reading Palestinian history from the Bronze Age to the present and are not based soley on the opinions of European colonizers nor on the maxim: "It's mine. I stole it fair and square." Annexation is now generally considered illegal in international law, even when it results from a legitimate use of force (e.g. in self‐defence).
What Europeans colonized the mid east, much less Palestine.
That word colonizer and imperialist is thrown around too readily and loosely, it has become useless. There is a dude who calls America an imperialist, but gives a pass to Putin, who is killing Ukrainians and destroying towns, and will most certainly liquidate his enemies if he wins that war.
I guess you didn't know that the British controlled Palestine and handed much of it over to the European Zionists who wanted to colonize it (just as, when the British conquered the Japanese in Vietnam at the end of WWII, they turned it over to the French to re-colonize--great fans of imperialism, the British).
As Tom Pessah wrote, "Zionism was never simply about the idea that 'Jewish Lives Matter' — it has always privileged Jewish colonists over indigenous people. Just ask Theodor Herzl," who wrote to the arch-colonizer Cecil Rhodes, "You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial. [Y]ou, Mr. Rhodes, are a visionary politician or a practical visionary… I want you to.. put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan and to make the following declaration to a few people who swear by you: I, Rhodes have examined this plan and found it correct and practicable. It is a plan full of culture, excellent for the group of people for whom it is directly designed, and quite good for England, for Greater Britain…."
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, in 'The Iron Wall" (1923), made no pretence that Zionism was not a colonial endeavor. He wrote:
There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. . . it is utterly
impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.
My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other
countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.
We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of
a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.
That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is,
whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate? Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible. And we are all of us, without any exception, demanding day after day that this outside Power, should carry out this task vigorously and with determination.
Two (or ten) wrongs don't make a right, even if you think they do.
I take it you believe that anyone who doesn't agree with you, including the many Jews who do not agree with you, is antisemitic. You should seek help for your persecution complex. What the Israelis are doing and you are justifying would be equally disgusting if the Israelis were tantric yoga practicing purple Patagonians.
Yours is the 2nd post I was about to give a heart of approval until the very last sentence. The other said "you have Jew hatred stuck in your throat". This one accuses Maureen of antisemitism, & though I may disagree somewhat with her position on this issue, I am sure that is an inaccurate & unfair characterization of her.
Spot on
There is nothing in that that calls for genocide of Muslims, on the other hand HAMAS and Islamic sacred books call for the genocide of Jews.
A big difference. Nice try but big fail.
And the notion that 8 million Jews, in a small nation could genocide Muslims,is totally ridiculous, drop that genocide gig, it makes you and those that use it seem irrational and brainwashed.
By the way Zionists consider me an antisemite.
8 million Jews in a small nation could easily exterminate 2.3 million Gazans in a tiny, walled-in 144 square mile ghetto--especially when they can herd most of them into the south of the ghetto: like shooting fish in a barrel.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/who-is-committing-genocide
Both Israel and Hamas fit the description.
In 1947, the UK turned the Palestine problem over to the UN. After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947). The Jewish portion did not include the West Bank, Gaza, or the Golan Heights.
"They brought it on themselves." That's what colonizers always say about their attempts to dispossess and/or exterminate the colonized. It's also what abusers say about those they abuse: "Why did you make me do that to you?"
As Denis Johnston said, The birth of a nation is no immaculate conception."
You should read more slowly; you seem to skipped over such incidents as the bombing of the King David Hotel and the Nakba.
“Aggression” you wrote.
You have you put a months long bombing campaign that l has killed and maimed thousands of women and children in quotes.
You’re unsure of it, perhaps,
the word you are looking for is genocide.
If Israel wanted to commit genocide against Palestinians, they'd all be dead, and (and I'm sure you've heard all this before), the Palestinians in Gaza have increased by 1 million; all told there's been an increase of I think 5 million. Genocide? Hamas is responsible for the death of the Palestinians in Gaza. They wanted those deaths. It's their main PR strategy.
So, obviously, it's time for the thinning of the population or the mowing of the grass. These are the words of the Israeli government but you don't think they are irresponsible.
I believe Netanyahu wanted this invasion. He needed it to stay in power. He supported keeping Hamas in power. He knew of their plan to invade. He removed troops from the border. It was an open invitation.
The Netanyahu administration's response to multiple warnings about an imminent attack by Hamas on Israel reminds me so much of the Bush administration's response to multiple warnings of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda on the US. They both apparently purposefully left the country vulnerable, diverting defenses of the target area elsewhere.
Your comments are spot on.
Thanks Sophie
No its Pal-o-cide. and it's because Palestinian allow Hamas to mingle among them and hide in plain sight among people who lend themselves to this camouflage and then want to be construed as innocent...I don't see it that way. And I see the Palestinians as complicit in the acts of Hamas because of that..
Genocide, you do violence to the word genocide. Genocide is the intention of Islam Israel is defending themselves from the future, proclaimed genocide of Jews by it's Muslim neighbors.
Preamble and paragraph 7 of the HAMAS covenant, but I know you won't read it, as you have Jew hatred stuck in your throat.
That's your opinion. I've heard other definitions of that slogan which have nothing to do with genocide. You also fail to mention the high-ranking officials in the Israeli government who do not want any state for Palestinians and have called for expelling Palestinians from Gaza. When an Israeli official says a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza, is that a better slogan?
Israel has right wing and left wing politics, just like the US. It has right wingers like Netanyahu and liberals like Lapid, Herzog and Golan.
Lee, That's because Israelis value history. They've been screwed over ever since the promise of the Balfour Declaration to the 1948 agreement Churchill obtained from his friend Abdullah in order to get his cooperation. The biblical land of Palestine that was promised to Israel was given to Jordan. Israel's portion was reduced by 80%. Now, the Gazans who lost the war in 1967 want to reclaim it through Iran funded propaganda. Israel has given its life's blood to keeping the land they were given and won in 4 major wars, where they were attacked but surprised everyone and won. Think Ukraine! No US citizen died in behalf of Israel. We gave them military support, as we are doing in Ukraine but nothing else. Now Hamas would like to take back what Israel won fair and square. Funny thing is that Palestinians have a very short historical memory.
The British gave away Palestinian land, homes and olive groves, etc. to Jewish colonizers without their agreement or compensation!!! There was no excuse. Pro-Israel people are enraged by any criticism because at heart they know it was absurd and if the roles had been reversed they would never have accepted such a thing. The Holocaust was a great horror, but many such things have happened in the history of the world, if only on a smaller scale. It is happening now in Gaza. Many are seeing the cruelty, the litany of propaganda and excuses, the control exerted by the wealthy over free speech and over Congress and Biden (AIPAC's #1 recipient of donations), the reflexive accusations of antisemitism, the indoctrination in schools, the crazed claims to the land based on 2000 year old religious texts. Israel is accused of acting like the Nazis that killed the ancestors of many Jews. The country acts only out of hatred. They are in a frenzied killing spree. Palestinian children are smart and sweet and beautiful to look at. They are not ugly, stupid lesser humans than the Zionists, who call them "human animals." Look at the videos of these astoundingly brave, resilient, smart children. The Zionists' hearts are dead. They are killers, thieves, torturers and destroyers. There is no excuse. Jewish people don't have to have their own religious state supported by hundreds of billions of US money. They live happily all over the world. If antisemitism is growing, it is due to Israel's atrocities or to claims of antisemitism cast toward anyone suggesting the slightest dismay at their endless slaughter in Gaza. They say if this was a genocide, all the Palestinians would be dead, but it's being carried out at a more "acceptable" pace and they say that it will continue for months and months. Eventually Gazan natural gas and lovely shoreline will belong to Israel and one way or another the pesky indigenous Palestinians will no longer live in Palestine, which the sick propagandists like to say never existed. This is too sad.
It has nothing to do with opinions, It is the logical consequence of the slogan, Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" is a blatant call for genocide.
However I stand in awe of the human mind's ability to rationalize and justify their prejudices and beliefs.
https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/337807/the-real-meaning-of-from-the-river-to-the-sea/
It very well could've been Putin's idea to divert world attention from their barbaric slaughter of Ukrainians, reduce Western support of Ukraine, & cause internal dissension in the US & Europe. It couldn't have worked out any better for Putin.
US intelligence on Israeli military operations -> Trump -> Russia -> Iran -> Hamas -> savage attack on Israel -> Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Putin knew what he was doing. So many Americans fell for it.
There you go. It all makes sense doesn't it. America's eye was taken off the ball, and the corporate media has a new bright shiny object for us to chase and be distracted.
Mark me, soon there will be HAMAS/Israeli fatigue, and it will all slowly fade into the background, while the opposition to Trump from the left is fractured, by stupid professors and students and easily swayed non thinking liberals.
The Presidential campaign will sideline Ukraine, HAMAS, Israel., and the rift on the left will empower the Republicans, as leftists, Muslims,and blacks sit out the election or vote for third parties.
Trump has the hearts and minds of the MAGAts by promising to use dictaorial powers to "cleanse America of "vermin" Musllims, but that will never happen, because the Saudis have America by the throat (they Own Exxon and refineries in cancer alley), they also have the one thing that Trump loves.. money, and they shower him and his family with billions.
Your paragraph 3 explains a lot. The Orthodox Right & the Settlers who illegally dispossessed Palestinians of their lands and livelihoods.
I recall the era of the 1970’s & even the 1980’s where students from countries in the West were frequently entreated to” come work on a communal Kibbutz & learn about self sufficiency “. It was very appealing through that era of “ back to the land” Movements.
I had friends go do that. They had no idea the land they stayed on hadn’t always been freely settled. 😟
Israel has changed, the same way America has changed, and for the worse, with the rise of the Religious Right. We have Trump and the MAGAts, and Israel has Netanyahu and the the Likkud and it's coalition.
As regards always being on the land. Forget not that the Jews actually bought the land from Arabs between 1920 and 1948, and their Arab neighbors tried to genocide them in 1948, they failed, and not having learned their lesson, they came back, again,again,again an d again and will notstop, even if there is a two state solution. Israel knows it, the Muslims know it, but the vapid west doesn't, because arrogant westerners know jack squat about Islam, only the obfuscation, whines they hear from their Muslim friends and professors.
Israel did what any self preserving country would and has done in history took over the land of the people that tried to obliterate it, which the Arabs call the Nakba (catastrophe) well they brought it on themselves with their genocidal attempt, and Israel needed borders by which to secure it's safety. All countries do. And each time their Muslim neighbors tried to genocide the Jews, Israel took more land.
You would think the Muslims would have learned a lesson,. But I recall the words of Einstein about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results
While you're quoting religious texts, how about the one Netanyahu quoted to the Israelis at a public appearance, that God said to exterminate the whole of a population -- Melek, Malech? He was referring to what he intended for the Palestinians (oops, did he mean Hamas? Somehow he always conflates them. Always.)
Well this “ genocide “ is happening on the Palestinian people everyday since Oct 8, 2023. 20k people wiped out including babies women and children by 2k bombs dropped on houses hospitals churches mosque, all looking for “ Hamas “ in these tunnels by IDF! Tell me who is running to the sea to escape these bombs. Who are the dead. Who are the hungry. Who are the homeless . Who are the sick and thirsty? Who is burying their children?!
Spare me the false equivalencies and HAMAS propaganda. HAMAS is lies and exaggerates and gullible westerners eat it up, whole sale, by questioning he veracity of the Jews. That alone is a sign of antisemitism.
What a false analogy, equating people running to the sea, with a religious dictate of Free Palestine from the River to the Sea, you must think you are clever. The IDF is waging war to protect itself from genocide by Muslims, not committing genocide.
The idea of a 7 million Jews genociding a billion Arab.Muslims is preposterous, you and ;people like you do violence to the word genocide. Jews genociding Arabs, preposterous, Arabs Genociding Jews a reality.
The word genocide is thrown around so readily as agitprop, that it is worthless. It is like the boy who cried wolf.
I tire of it. "Poor Arabs are being genocided by a handful of Jews. Meanwhile the religious requirement and motivation is the Genocide of Jews
From the HAMAS Covenant:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
I am sore tired of the idiocy and gullibility of American students and professors . Higher education hardly, more like brainwashing factories and who funds a great part of these Universities? The Saudis and the Emirates.
Thank you for setting the record straight Lee. Richard Davidson and you renew my faith in Jewish values on parade in Israel as we speak. Would that the US electorate re to tRump as the Israeli public has to Netanyahu.
I set the record straight, because of facts. I have no ideology, no beliefs, and am highly critical of the conscienceless settler and right wing Jews that back Netanyahu and kill Palestinians and drive them off the land so they can take over and build kibbutz.
Enough is enough and their actions only create reaction and intensify animosity, but I do believe in the right of Israel to exist, and that the actions of the Arabs in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 2006 and Oct 6 were unjustified and insane.
The fools, the morons, the idiots brought this on themselves, by trying and failing to genocide the Jews in the Levant.They will never learn, because it is a religious obligation, so sayeth their sacred books.
I am anti Muslin because I have studied their religion it's sacred text, and it has not modernized, it has only retrenched to it's fundamentals.
I am anti Zionist, not anti Jew, Jews don't and haven't bothered me or the west, despite the tropes bandied around by left and right.
I eschew the word antisemite because it is based on a fraud and myth, that there was a flood, with Noah as it's hero, and he had a son Shem (from which the word semite), and a descendant named Abraham, who had two sons Isaac (patrriarch of Jews) and Ishmael (Patriarch of Muslims) so Muslims and Jews, per the myth are semites.
And I am anti Christian as well, given that most of the blood spilled in history has been by Christians, mostly fighting each other, but always, always demeaning and subjugating women, gays and "heathens" like the American "Indians" One of my ancestors even migrated to Virginia in 1650 to "civilize" the Indians, paradoxically white children adopted by the "uncivilized" Indians preferred to live with the communal "Indians" to returning to the world of the religiously crazed,intolerant and selfish white world.
This is in the Hamas latest version: Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.
9. Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry. It is the religion that inculcates in its followers the value of standing up to aggression and of supporting the oppressed; it motivates them to give generously and make sacrifices in defence of their dignity, their land, their peoples and their holy places.
Hamas and the right wing government of Israel are equally devious.
Link please. Otherwise I take you as an Islamic propagandist. And they (HAMAS) violated their own covenant on Oct 7th, invading Israel by land sea, and air, slaughtering teens at a festival, killing and burning alive childen, babies, women disabled and elderly.
Good try,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter
Deceptive, yes but the Israeli government has been just as bad. They've killed over 20,000 civilians and 70% were estimated to be women and children. I'm sure that burned some alive and killed disabled and elderly. No one is defending Hamas but you are defending the Israeli indiscriminate bombing.
Give me a break. I ain't playing the numbers game, ignorant westerners fall for it, so easily and never ever question HAMAS Health Ministry figures, but automatically question Israeli.
Here is a fact. HAMAS is responsible for every Jew and Muslim life lost. They use Jews and their own people as human shields.They are blood thirsty religious fanatics with no principle, At least Israel is giving notice of attacks.
The UN finally admitted that HAMAS has been using hospitals as command posts and storage, and entrances into tunnels.
Every person slaughtered from Oct 7th on, is the fault of HAMAS, whose agenda is genocide of the Jews.
Just like every person killed by allied bombs was the responsibility of the NAZI's and The IJA.
This numbers game of the Muslims doesn't work. The religious fanatic idiots started a war to obliterate the Jews, and paid the price, they misjudged the Jews, they thought that the Jews would lay down arms and bawl for return of the hostages, after all they freed 1,000 prisoners for the return of one soldier, boy did they ever misudge.
Anyway Oct 7th was one helluva a sweet birthday present for Putin., just what he needed to distract from a real genocide in Ukraine.
And vapid, feckless American leftists have fallen for it.
Did you know that Saudi Money is a major endowment of American universities. Just as they own Exxon, and the gulf coast refineries, American labor refines American oil, so that the Saudis can ship gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and kerosene all ove the world.
I understand that "From the River to the Sea Palestine must be Free" refers to the area of Israel, which is why I did not join in with that particular chant when I was marching in solidarity with the Palestinians in Boston this past fall. However to equate the right of those in Gaza to be free with the genocide of Jews seems like a very peculiar interpretation of genocide which is murder and violence. Palestinians living in the U.S. are free and have the rights of other foreigners and new immigrants. They are treated as all people are.
I do not think the (permanent) "refugees" living in Gaza have anything resembling freedom or autonomy even in the area surrounded by Israel that they have been dwelling in during these recent decades. They have been dealing with blockades and severe travel restrictions to nearby areas, nothing at all like the freedom that Israelis have to move about and visit friends and family. It has not been a good or normal life for them.
You have said so many things wrong, I'm not going to attempt to rebut them. You just have a very closed mind when it comes to Israel. It's not a game.
Did you not hear the words coming out of her mouth? Was it worth a resignation? Probably not. Was it definitely worthy of a reprimand? Yes. And a question of her morals. It was definitely a political and theological decision for her to make/say. A person in her position should know better.
Racist vendetta? If you believe “vendetta” is an accurate label, and not hyperbole...then you should have no objection to those who characterize her testimony as conscious antisemitism.
Both positions miss the mark. Of course, racial and religious prejudices most surely play a role here, but more invidious than insidious...as that is the cancer the exists throughout so much of American society.
As a Jew...and I might add a 73 year old “black hat” Yid with two advanced degrees...this division between our peoples pains me. The organized, insidious racist groups in this country...the Charlottesville scum...want nothing better than to hang both of us from the same tree.
When I was young, we were allies in the fight against racial and ethnic bigotry. I only hope we can recreate that alliance.
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere here, but it was a major discussion point on another site, probably Twitter (X), that Gay had supposedly unfairly punished (expelled?) certain male Black professors, & therefore was being accused of a certain kind of discrimination (misandry?). I have no knowledge of the veracity of these accusations, but she is apparently quite a controversial figure in more ways than one.
She clearly plagiarized with often word for word quotes. Why wasn't this caught years ago ?
Not important at that level: it’s all about money.
I'd be careful with the accusations of plagiarism. Those charges came mostly from The Washington Free Beacon which is a right wing rag.
William its also in the WSJ. It's everywhere. Do you really think a liberal outlet would 'Out' her? Look at how Reich responds- knowing nothing he defends her and warns of how dangerous this is... OOHHH. now that is veracity. Wise up and grow up. Look at the country where you live and the political environment. If a Republican says 2+2=4 is it wrong because a Republican said it? Oh sorry to do that to you, I forgot that math is racist...
I know you are trying to be insulting but it didn't work. I know how the right works and perhaps it's you who should grow up. I don't subscribe to the WSJ. Did they independently verify it or did they just quote other right wing groups? I'm a math major and it's not the liberals saying math is racist, it's the conservatives. I could also show you when 2 + 2 does not equal 4.
If you actually write "economic and policy commentary," then you should consider returning to college, assuming you have previously attended.
Sophie, R.Brusca probably never even attended college in the first place. He seems to be a ''know it all'' troll.
Thank you for that. John... Perhaps you, too, will enlighten me as to what you find missing?
I have a BA, MA, and PhD in Economics. I was a research Chief at the New York Fed. I was the first guest on the first day on CNBC. I have been to over 40 countries giving economic advice- Always invited back.
I'm sure your opinion is much more important than my successful 50 year career suggests.
I would love to be enlightened by what you find missing so I can improve - never to late to improve. please respond and share your wisdom.
Thank you for that. perhaps you will enlighten me as to what you find missing?
I have a BA, MA, and PhD in Economics. I was a research Chief at the New York Fed. I was the first guest on the first day on CNBC. I have been to over 40 countries giving economic advice- Always invited back.
I'm sure your opinion is much more important than my successful 50 year career suggests.
I would love to be enlightened by what you find missing so I can improve - never to late to improve. please respond and share your wisdom.
You do not think it specious that they start by accusing her of not being harsh enough on antisemitism and then switch to running third party accusations of plagiarism?
The charges of plagiarism have been reported in every major news outlet. Not only that, the evidence is laid out for everyone to see. You can see what she wrote side by side with what she copied. It's absolutely clear she plagiarized.
Plagiarism is plagiarism no matter who finds it.
why wasn't her plagiarism not caught years ago ....because it's not true ?
I don't know the facts of the matter. Was she found to have plagiarized by the right body and what did they recommend ? It did not sound like it.
Because no one looked. Why is it that only the right wing media found this and the mainstream media invented new terms to cover up her plagiarism like duplicitive? Because anyone reporting on this would be accused of racism.
Marty I’m still looking to see what is the appropriate body found that she plagiarized
Really??? The evidence is out there for everyone to see. It's quite obvious. If you see side by side her work and the work she copied from it's not enough? Who is this mythical appropriate body that decides if someone plagiarized? This is from the Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/01/claudine-gays-resignation-was-overdue/676999/)
"Despite the results of an investigation commissioned by the Harvard Corporation last month that found cases only of “inadequate” citation, new charges about her work include episodes of what most scholars would recognize as academic misconduct, including plagiarism. Experts consulted by CNN consider the recent excerpts to be plagiarism, and I agree: I was a professor for almost 35 years, at multiple institutions, including Harvard, where I taught courses for their continuing-education and summer programs for 18 years. I have referred students for varying punishments based on similar misconduct; I have also sat on boards that adjudicated such claims.
...
Look, there is a term for the particular kind of plagiarism discovered by racists and other bad people:
Plagiarism."
nope not good enough.
Undergraduate students flunk courses for this.
And I thought that only the Catholic Church had a lock on mortal sin.
Stop making sense, it's upsetting to quite a few of the other commentators
Copying entire passages without giving due credit is the kind of plagiarism that causes an undergrad to flunk a course. Is that what happened here?
No one had the right software to catch it and no one had the balls to admit it when they found it.
Maybe because, if it was only misplaced quotation marks, it didn't rise to the level of getting fired? [It obviously didn't rise to that level since she was NOT fired then].
Maybe the accusation comes now that firing her sounds more political and they needed to revive a more genuine reason to fire her?
Indeed. But what if the Board knew about this and named her anyway? That must be found out.
If so then they controlled her...
I'd be careful with the accusations of plagiarism. Those charges came mostly from The Washington Free Beacon which is a right wing rag.
When the source has Gay's excerpts right next to nearly identical text (that the WFB sourced and cited), and Gay did not cite the sources, it certainly looks like plagiarism. If there is any criticism, it should be directed to the Harvard committee that oversaw the review of plagiarism allegations.
Every single media outlet has reported these charges. They are real and they are plagiarism. The evidence is laid out. They showed the 2 passages side by side, the plagiarism is undeniable.
Dr Reich concludes in this statement:
"As a Jew, I also cannot help but worry that the actions of these donors – many of them Jewish, many from Wall Street – could fuel the very antisemitism they claim to oppose, based on the age-old stereotype of wealthy Jewish bankers controlling the world."
My first reaction following his first paragraph was a sense of unease accompanying a fleeting thought having something to do with those damn space lasers cross my mind. I completely agree.
Anyone tempted to make antisemitic assumptions because of Bill Ackman, Marc Rowan, Seth Klarman, etc. should also remember that Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive American Jewish activists were among the very first people in the U.S. to protest openly against the Israeli bombardment in Gaza. There are also the group letters and statements of Jewish writers, academics, and artists that criticize the misuse of the Holocaust and fear of antisemitism to censor protest against Israeli government actions.
Does anyone think it’s any coincidence that these are all women? it seems like all the “good old boys“ that Professor Reich named here have a bone to pick with these women. And I don’t think it’s simply all about comments pertaining to Israel and the Palestinians. Are these big money donors concerned about the slaughter that’s happening in Gaza now? Probably not. Aside from that, there is nothing new about the intrusion of mega millionaires and billionaires into every aspect of American society and culture. They control our elections, they bribe politicians, they control arts endowments, and they are involved in every single decision that Congress makes, for better or worse. I think it’s the biggest plague that this country faces, aside from Donald Trump.
Exactly! They control everything! And their influence is practically always negative. They are why we are the only supposedly advanced nation without universal healthcare even though we pay twice as much, why we can't get anything substantial done on climate disruption & environmental destruction, and why our democracy is in grave jeopardy, among so many other ills & crises we face.
We are the only place in the world where many thousands of people go bankrupt due to excessive medical debt every single year. It’s obscene. Plus everything else you wrote. Just the thought of how we are under the control of these corporate masters exhausts me. It’s seems impossible to overcome.
We should never have let it get this way. It started in earnest under Reagan over 40 years ago, & never stopped getting worse.
The Washington Free Beacon and Harvard. Now that's a story with juxtaposition. Harvard needs to tell the wealthy donors to zip it OR take their money to public universities who actually need it. The donors were bullying the 1st female African American President of Harvard. That's shameful. Thanks RR for calling this out.
That has been my thought all along, and I’m white too.
To be fair, her last name IS "gay." What do you THINK closeted racists would do?
The more her work is investigated the more instances of outright plagiarism have been found. She cannot lead a prestigious school with this hanging over her head. It was appropriate that she resign
Forgive me if someone else has already said this. My concern is that this will be used by the GOP to discredit the various African American women prosecuting Trump.
They already are in various other ways. It comes with the territory (unfortunately for Black women, who are demonized & denigrated by the right no matter what they say or do unless they totally give in to the republofascist dogma like Candace Owens).
It was her like testimony before a Congressional hearing that was the smoking gun, and should never have happened. Only progressive university Presidents would answer a call to stand tall before a Republican congressional hearing and explain why you won't repeat the words they demand you repeat. She/et al screwed up by repeating the phrase, and adding, "Congress has no authority over academic institutions and how they set policy for their students."
Were the attendees in a position to refuse the invitation...?
Congress can't force a private institution to appear before a hearing, maybe with a supoena, but not to testify. I would of been more impressed if these Presidents baited by this Republlican congresswoman, and merely agreed "the genocide of Jews is should not be allowed on our campus. Now, that I've fulfilled your agenda to say what you want me to say, I'll leave, because you have no authority or jurisdiction over my university, it's students, and what they say or do!"
Note to self: don't take a private jet *and* be ignored (or else!)...
= D
What I have to wonder about is "How did she get the gig in the first place?" If that Corporation is so powerful/influential, wouldn't they have blocked her appointment from the get-go? I'm wondering if it was some kind of Affirmative Action placement: Black AND Female AND Gay? (Okay, that last one was a in poor taste bad pun. Sorry; couldn't resist.) Makes me wonder who the other candidates that did NOT get the gig were.
The reality is that charges of plagiarism or other academic misconduct should be considered by a faculty committee rather than trustees who should concern themselves with financial and legal integrity issues and get the hell out of student and faculty academics.
And why is that? What do the wealthy class, the overwhelming majority of which are good-for-nothing dopes who inherited their fortunes, have to do with EDUCATION???
THIS is why 30% living in America are INSURRECTIONISTS supporting a morbidly obese, mentally-feeble, criminal rapist who has hands softer than an infant's bottom!
I’m not sure that the majority of the wealthy are “good for nothing dopes,” I do agree that very few of them know too little about education to be involved in making decisions about academic issues. They do know how to give money, which all academic institutions need. Unfortunately, they then think they are entitled to run the institutions.
I agree that the 30% supporters of Orange Hitler are insurrectionists but I don’t see the connection to the other issue.
Trump and Musk are walking proof Henry, that you don't need to have an education or even be truly literate to be rich. All that is required is to be ruthless, sociopaths and a psychopath, any of RR's readers could be millionaires if they possessed these antisocial qualities. That we don't is why we belong to the RR fan club.
Truth. Some people are ignorantly worshipful of the wealthy, apparently unaware that they or their relatives only became wealthy on the backs of the working class.
I've also heard lately that he has a stinky bottom! 🤗🤗🤗
*Exactly*: why can't "the rich" stick to subverting the political system & skewing the tax code?!?
= D
PS: Remember that the rich have *plenty* to do with education, e.g. cheating the system so that their legacies are secured admissions. (The question should really be why they would need to tamper with day-to-day administration as well... to which the answer is - obviously - because it suits them just fine.)
= )
Aye - there’s the rub. Turns out the search committee and Harvard Corporation are one and the same. That’s a conflict right there and they also didn’t do their job as a search committee. This needs to be corrected and changed as a matter of policy. They should also change their name from corporation to Board like other universities.
But if the selection of a university president is not the stuff of faculty committee review, at all,does plagiarism go un-found, un-discussed, and without impact on the choice of the leader?
Yes, unless there is a committee of the faculty where a member might (a very big if here) investigate the record. Having served on. UC faculty committee that advised the Regents on selection of a President, I’ve seen how the head hunters had more influence on the process than faculty. It may not be a bad a sausage making but it’s not pretty. Surprisingly, the process can result in excellent people being chosen, at least at the UC President level. But don’t get me started on the qualifications of academic administrators in general.
Delightful. Thanks for the comment. We could trade horror stories.
In a relentless campaign, Griffin, Ackman, Klarman, Blankfein, secured the hearing, created a pr distraction and then continued until they pushed Gay out.
And the bombing of women and children continues.
And who has responsibility for that? HAMAS who unleashed the hounds of war. Just like the NAZI's were responsible for the bombing of women and children in Germany
Don't start a fight you can't finish, yet HAMAS did and then used the bleeding hearts of the west to save them from the consequences.
What a deal. I attack but hide behind hostages and "innocent civilians"
Human shields.
And are any of them innocent, maybe babies and toddlers, but I am certain that on Oct 7th, the women were watching streaming videos of the attack and slaughter and ulating, and children glued to the TV sets were cheering for the Islamic terrorists.
I personally can not comprehend the affection that Ms Gay and the students have for the MUSLIMS. Islam is the most intolerant, homophobic, misogynistic religion, that has power over it's people, today, second only to fundamentalist Hindu, the BJP party, and the would be theocratic Christians of America. like Dominionists (Christiian Reconstruction) Judaism is liberal, and in Israel Secular.
There is a video of the UNRWA training children in Gaza to hate and kill Jews.
Thanks Linda, I know that.
She shows no more love for Muslims than for Jews. Ever read the Bible? You can find all the intolerant, homophobic, misogynistic behavior that most religions have.
I read the bible cover to cover, first time at age 12, sans a hall monitor telling me what it meant, the second time when age 40, and often since. I know what is in the bible, incest, rape, murder, genocide.. so what. I am an atheist, and believers be they Christian or Jew don't live in a theocracy, Israel is not a theocracy.
Muslims on the other hand live in theocracy, where Mufti's, Ayatollahs and Morality police roam the streets and terrorize the population. Have you paid attention to Iran, the imprisonment and slow strangulation of girls because they refuse to wear or wear properly the hijab.
How about stoning of women, most of whom were victims of rape, but adjudged adulteress because they can't find four men who were witnesses, (Of course a male witness is an accomplice)
Jews and Christians (not yet at least, things will change if Trump is elected) don't practice the old and new testament, well maybe some sects to a limited extent, but it is a different story in Islam. There is no deviation form the "Holy Quran" and haddiths, not in an Islamic country.
Israel would be Sudan or Nigeria except that it fights back. Even with US troops in Sudan, 9000 Black people were killed by the terrorists.
Their poor performance in the hearing will give ammo to the MAGAts, who will point to their effete coastal culture.
Magas and hedge fund managers would seem to make strange bedfellows, but in truth both seem to strongly dislike diversity, equity and inclusion.
Paradoxical, isn’t it?
Well, I think misogyny trumps class considerations.
And the setting — the public forum — works against women in a way that is reminiscent of ancient public shaming of women who dared to step out and think and act independently.
It happened to Anita Hill.
It happened to Christine Blasey
Ford .
It doesn’t work against Rachel Maddow.
Misogyny and Homophobia, I agree McMullen which leaves another paradox, the Trumpian billionaire Peter Thiel who is openly gay. So money Trumps all.
Money gets you out of any jams that your race, national origin, or sexual orientation get you into.
They share much in common.
Corporations are actually the main benefactors of the growing DEI industry.
And neither likes critical thinking!
Robert is unable to face up to the damage of affirmative action policies that gave gay degrees and the highest position at Harvard despite academic dishonesty that I have called out In freshman students. She was not well served by mentors who must not have closely examined her work.
Thanks for chiming in MAGAt Eric.
The rules are different given our position in life. Like you, I graded freshman essays based on their true merits; but as we see at elevated levels of society, the rules change.
I attended an institutional leadership course where we were asked: what is the primary role of an academic leader? We sat in our little groups with chart paper and magic markers and came up with "educational role model" or "academic cheerleader" or "socializing motivator" etc.
The correct answer: an academic leader's primary role is to INCREASE ENROLMENT! (that's when I quit the academic leadership course)
I worked in higher education all my life, and in my experience, the bottom line was always "bums in chairs", ie, money.
The second role of the academic leader was also instructive: PROJECT A POSITIVE IMAGE. I guess that's where ex-President Gray went off the tracks.
Where were your comments when Assad was slaughtering the Syrian people? Selective principle isn’t principle at all.
"was" slaughtering? John, I think he's still at it. (And Syria is now known as the torture center of the world.) But where is the outrage? And where is the outrage over Putin ratcheting up the bombing of civilians?
Selective principles, selective morals; political expediency, especially in an election year. these people can be bombed; these can't. These people can do the bombing; these can't. And of course the military-industrial complex makes big $ on every bomb dropped.
It's not just the climate that's going to hell; it's human morality.
Sorry, omniscience isn’t a quality of mine.
No, Harvard would have lost much more in federal money from not cleaning up its act and from suffering a judgment in a Title VI civil rights lawsuit.
Fact: Between 350,000 and 500,000 German civilians were killed during WWII Allied air raids, raids conducted in the war against the Nazis.
If elimination of Hamas is a proper and appropriate objective...and if one doesn’t accept that then they are living in another universe...the question is how it can be accomplished. And of course, I’d wager many of you fail to acknowledge the relevance to civilian deaths Hamas embedding military infrastructure in hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure. Such moves would be sanctionable violations of “rules of engagement” in any western military.
Whether one loves or hates Israel, whether one is anti-Semitic or not, the bombing of women and children continues in Gaza.
The for some reason not so obvious retort is there would be no bombing if there wasn’t an invasion by thousands of armed men whose sole purpose was to murder, rape, and butcher 1200 men, women, and babies. There would be no bombing of civilians if the civilians were not made into protective f
Right on, These feckless and ignorant bleeding hearts, have been brainwashed by the media and Islamic propaganda. Israel's real problem is that it doesn''t sit atop massive oil reserves.
Please chill, Lee. calling people feckless and ignorant bleeding hearts is totally unconvincing. You know they could call you brainwashed by the Likud and Netanyahu. We don't get anywhere like that.
The idea that "Israel's real problem is that it doesn't sit atop massive oil reserves". is interesting. Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan could explain to you that sitting on top of oil reserves does not guarantee peace, on the contrary.
You obviously haven't read my comment(S) I deplore Netanyahu and the settlers, the Israel right, and have been called an antisemite because I am opposed to Zionism.
But I deal with facts, not ideologies or bullshit. abhor religion, it is responsible for more suffering, oppression and pain than any other cause and in that I include all religions, period
Afghanistan does not sit atop oil, and Libyan oil is the cause of it's own misery .Qadaffi and successors were stupid and eat up with themselves and their religion.
The Jews are a lot smarter and wiser than Qadaffi, and Arab oil has the world wrapped around it's finger. all they have to do is squeeze the sphincter muscle and the world falls to it's knees. If Israel had the Arab oil reserves, it would be an entirely different world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_gas_field
Chevron owns Global industry which is a majority shareholder in the Leviathan field, and that is natural gas, not oil, and is a pittance compared to the Saudis, Kuwait, Qatar, the Emirates, Iraq and Iran.
It is like comparing T Ball to Professional baseball.
That is an amazing conclusion!
Sry posted too soon - merely that the sanctity that distinguishes civilians was obliterated by turning them into fortifications or “human shields”
And, once the sanctity is gone, there is no limit to the numbers of civilians who are at risk.
Actually when the sanctity is removed the people who were attacked can go after military targets wherever they are. There are no doubt many innocent people being killed. However if there are so many innocent people in Gaza then how did they win a landslide election while campaigning on the destruction of Israel and the Jews? This is all Hamas and Irans fault and the people of Gaza brought their own demise by sideing with them.
So say you. Answer me this: Who brought down hell on the Gazans?
HAMAS or the Jews.? Who is using people as human shields, HAMAS or the Jews?
That statement is true, Jeffrey. I don't know what causes this but in French newspapers too, they agree that Hamas did hide under that hospital that was bombed a while back.
https://www.france24.com/fr/moyen-orient/20231115-hopital-al-chifa-bande-gaza-armee-israelienne-hamas-israel-guerre-tunnels
The French also have the experience of Algeria, when the Fellaghas were fighting the French: They would hide ammunitions under schools and hospitals, making it harder to fight them without hurting the civilian population. The French colons of the day (1952-1962) were just as ruthless, and it took a long time and a lot of efforts on both sides to reconcile. That's why we can say to our Jewish friends: don't do it.
That is true Jeffrey, however, in this area, Palestinians, whose land was taken to create the State of Israel in 1048 are not given the same rights as Israelis. That builds serious resentment too. The settlements on the West bank are all in violation of the Oslo II Accords: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank_areas_in_the_Oslo_II_Accord#:~:text=The%20Oslo%20II%20Accord%20divided,%2C%20as%20%22Area%20C%22.
And lately, settlers have been a lot more pugnacious with Palestinians.
I truly don’t understand this notion of dispossession. Do you think an armored brigade swept out of Birobidjan in 1947 and drove the indigenous Arabs from their land. Jews comprised the majority of Jerusalem in the 19th century. There were always Jews on the land who did not convert when Muslim armies swept out of Arabia, North Africa, and what is now Turkey. Obviously 19th century nationalism and the persecution of Jews in Russia and Europe, brought waves of Jewish immigration beginning in the 1880s. The situation is quite complicated; there was a civil war resulting in UN sponsored partition in 1947. This was not the only partition in 1947; India was divided to create a Muslim state in Pakistan which resulted in over one million murdered and hundreds of thousands of women raped. Three major wars, terrorism and two nuclear powers in a state of war ensued. There was no Palestinian state because the leading Palestinian family (the Husseini Mufti of Jerusalem allied itself with the Nazis and raised SSregiments for Hitler while broadcasting propaganda from Berlin. The British ceded Palestine to Jordan, refusing to reward Nazi allies with statehood. After partition, 5 national Arab armies invaded the Jewish state , were driven out and boundaries and populations shifted (like India). Half of the Jewish population are self described Jewish Arabs, driven from Arab countries (Iraq, Syria, Egypt Morocco, Libya and probably some I’m leaving out) Like I said there are few moral certainties in history; massacre and the threat of massacre provides some
What about the terrorists killing 9000 Black people in Sudan and 7600 people in Nigeria? Israel would be Sudan or Nigeria, except that it fights back. I don't know what the answer is and am not a military expert, but no one seems to report on the same terrorism killing all of those thousands in Nigeria and Sudan. Where is Black Lives Matter when the terrorists say they don't want any more Black people in Sudan?
Red herring.
And you are silent on the fact that HAMAS is responsible, just as the NAZI's were responsible for the bombing of innocent women and children in Germany.
And the religious motivation of HAMAS and indeed Islam is the obliteration of Jews, and the name for that is genocide. Do yourself a favor and read the HAMAS Covenant Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Especially the preamble and article 7, paragraph 7, which is also Islamic sacred text.
And what about all of the innocent women and children slaughtered and burned alive by HAMAS and Islamic Jihad, no outrage for them, it was upfront and personal, The IDF is not personal, just trying to weed out and eliminate HAMAS who poses and existential threat to the Jews.
Then again HAMAS thought that they could get away with it, but using hostages and their won people as human shields.
Learn, think, analyze and don't get sucked in by Islamic propaganda.
You and all o f the other bleeding hearts, especially women, would not survive in a Muslim world, unless you convert and the women accepted the status of breed cows, and the gays, well they would be thrown off roofs, stoned or beheaded.
Hamas is not all of Islam. One should talk about Islamist extremism rather than Islam.
:Point taken, but I don't use ,my words lightly. As I have stated in other responses. I have studied Islam, to the extent that a Muslim called me a Muslim apostate(a murtadd),
Islam is a religion of peace, provided that it is supreme and peoples of the book (Christians, Jews and Zorastrians in Iran) are satisfied being dhimmi's (second class citizens), however if gay or an atheist it is off with your head, being hanged or stone, same for polytheists like Hindu, they must convert or die.
As an example Malaysia is not safe for Hindus, atheists, gays or women (at least self validating western women), submissive hijab, abaya wearing women are OK.
In an Islamic country like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran even Pakistan women can't travel unless accompanied by a male relative.
Often the musicians are Sufi and don't believe in all of that. Read Ali Akbar Khan's biographical book, in which he talks about all of the child abuse he experienced. He set up his music school in California. There are also Muslims in Israel who reject terrorism and many Muslims in the US claim to reject terrorism. I use the term terrorists or Islamic extremists. There are Jews and Muslims in the US who don't want anyone to be harmed and never wanted this war to happen.
Your last paragraph is what extremists in Israel's government coalition want.
Really? This paragraph?
You and all o f the other bleeding hearts, especially women, would not survive in a Muslim world, unless you convert and the women accepted the status of breed cows, and the gays, well they would be thrown off roofs, stoned or beheaded..
This is what the extremists in Israel's governmen want?
LMAO. You certainly have reading compehension skills
If that is not what you refer to, then copy and paste that paragraph. I've so many comments.
Very true, but that is only because our money, purchasing Muslim oil, has infiltrated our universities and brainwashed our feckless, idiots cum professors and students.
What about the 13000 missiles and rockets fired on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah?
Linda, what gets me is that where did those missiles come from? I thought israel had blockaded Gaza? also, why had israel never taken out the tunnels, which have been known about forever? just get a tunneling machine and start anywhere on the gaza border. not rocket sugery. anyway, back to missiles, there must be some identifying marks on the exploded parts which could be used to identify the origin. if so, go after the suppliers (wait, unless it's usa). yup war is big business.
And the Houthis are firing missiles at Israel and the US too. Except that some of the missiles are being shot down.
Hamas and Hezbollah bombed Israel with 13,000 missiles and rockets while Hamas fails to use its billions to feed its people. Who talks about all of the missiles and rockets fired on Israel? Who talks about towns in the north and the south being evacuated?
70% of the deaths in Gaza are women and children. Over 20,000 people have been killed. The attack started on the women and children, not Hamas.
Not even the terrorists claim that high a percentage!
I don't know what fiction you are reading but there was no attempt to protect civilians.
My brothers and sisters of the orthodox Satmar community completely disdain Israel. And they are FAR from antisemitic.
Not Israel but Netanyahu and the settlers, Israel was, before Netanyahu and his religious right coalition, an inclusive, secular state, that even recognize the rights of gays and atheists, Not so any Islamic country.
Them there are facts. Where would bleeding heart Jews, atheists, Christian would survive, in Israel or in an Islamic country?
Answer is Israel, not an Islamic country.
I don't think that you or they could answer that, because they know nothing about Islam. I do, I have studied the Quran, haddiths and per Islamic thought, I HAVE to be a Muslim, for one who has been exposed to Islam to the extent I have HAS to be Muslim, and thus I am an apostate Muslim, and the penalty for apostasy is, death
they are antisemitic and ignorant
The most dangerous place for Jews today is in Israel. Since WWII, a Jew is 80 times more likely to be killed in Israel than in all the European countries combined.
The Zionists are showing themselves to be mass-killers and "ethnic-cleansers" -- all the while trying to present themselves to the world as the victims.
I do not understand how you get from "the bombing of women and children continues" to "just another anti-Semitic hater of Israel". It is clearly true that the bombing is continuing and it is killing men, women, and children. It says nothing about the politics or emotions of the person who makes that statement.
Funny you should say that. I was very concerned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Enough that I attended the 50th anniversary memorial services in both cities.
...
War over in one day!?! Wow, are you talking nukes??? Understand reality on the ground??? Yeah, right.
One does not need to be antisemitic to lament the bombing of women and children, Richard. Come on! and innocent Jews have died too in this conflict. All these useless deaths are deplorable.
whether these presidents should be removed from their office for not automatically denouncing the idea of genocide is beside the point. Robert is pointing out the influence of these major Donner, and that their money should not give them any say whatsoever. Read the book, "Thee are the Plunderers" by Gretchen Morgenson about what private equity is doing to all sorts of companies, and health organizations, etc. by overloading them with debt, but getting thier profit before those companies either go out of business or go bankrupt, because of the debt and put hundreds of people out of work and decreasing customer satisfaction and health care. Yet they dare stand up to make a moral point, because they made so much money ??? This book even points out Apollo in particular amongst many others. The is a continuing moral bankrupting of many institutions based solely on those who have obscene amounts of money. Two wrongs do not make a right!
Yes, the private equity “game” is horrifying!
Sane rules about the economy would prevent private equity’s power.
Getting money out of politics ALONE won't solve very much. Getting PROFIT out of education will likely do MUCH MORE to solve our societal ills!
Daniel, you didn't get my point, sorry. My point is we need to change the regulations about Private Equity, that creates lots of ills, that have been growing like wildfire over the past decades as they are plundering our corporations, companies and healthcare with debt so that they make money, at the expense of others, in the way they are allowed to structure it. Then they use their money to continue to press their own agendas which is not in the best interest of companies, health care, education or politics.
I think he got your point (note that "private equity" wouldn't have a customer were it not for public pensions, endowments, etc. etc. chasing ephemeral - and not provably sustainable returns; further, note that well-educated citizens wouldn't have any reason to believe in the claims of the private equity industry, let alone a reason to dedicate themselves thereto)...
Rishi, I hear you but I have to disagree with the ‘well educated part”. Many of the people who go into private equity and partake it it, are usually well educated. They just are in the pursuit of pure financial gain, not in furthering the goals of the organizations they buyout. They see a cash cow, or real estate that they can leverage, and damn the goals or visions of the organization. They see it as legal, if perhaps shady morals. Jack, (Nuclear Jack) of past GE fame was a prime example. Very well educated and knew how to lay waste to a hugh amount of companies, and since he ended up with so much money even ‘religious’ Universities sought him out for donations to heap fame on him, even though it turns our that he was morally bankrupt and didn’t care about the organizations he ran into the ground, including the people as they were all a means to his end of money and fame.
In this case "well-educated" means not just the citizens that take employment with private equity concerns but also the folks whose consent is required to redirect investment $ to private equity: all of those people are private equity 'customers' (less so the folks whose companies get exploited) - and can only make decade-long (or longer) commitments by believing all those structural advantages will amount to something more than market returns (which is exceedingly dubious to folks of even modest education). Indeed, folks like CalPERS should *never* have aped what the Ivies were doing - and now appear to be holding the bag (i.e. while The Corporation seeks out new chums for the next great feeding fest).
PS: No disagreement about 'Neutron Jack', Al 'The Chainsaw' Dunlap, or any other such character - but those individuals still have a customer they have to serve ("shareholders" if you ask them, "stakeholders" if you ask the rest of us)... and they are, anyway, in a slightly different position as head of a conglomerate (which is not strictly the same thing as a private equity company - which is much more financial and much less likely to be invested in a given company's long-term success).
Money is a HUGE motivator in politics. Santos, Jordan, MTG, Bobert wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for money & the bribes they are most likely receiving from the NRA, etc,
I agree, Daniel, getting profit out of education would be a good start, but I don't know how much effect it would have on solving societal ills. Because these days "learning" seems to come from TikTok or X or some other social platform. I would hate to be a teacher facing a classroom full of students staring into their iPhones.
Except that money in politics makes for ever-increasing wealth inequality, creating billionaires with nearly unlimited economic AND political power. Government sets the rules for all.
And let's add getting profit out of health care. When privatization entered the scheme, so did layers of cost, billing and death to those who cannot pay.
I never mentioned anything about Israel or genocide, only about the same thing you, Robert and I agree upon - donors are not qualified to make decisions on academic matters. I don’t need a lecture on what I lived for half a century in academia.
Henry wrote: "donors are not qualified to make decisions on academic matters". exactly right. But the REALITY is: big donors have ALL the power. Higher Education is Big Business. And if I give Harvard a billion dollars, they'll put my name on the Library and give my good-for-nothing kids a red-carpet welcome and fire any administrator I've got a grudge against and hire my wife's cousin's niece.
You’re correct. For a billion dollars, you can get a seat on the board. For a million, they’ll say thank you and give you good seats at the football and basketball games but not let you dictate anything. But your kids will get in for a few more million if they can pose as an athlete. Of course, you might then go to jail - it’s happened.
I don't see the plundering getting much better without changing incentives for corporate leadership and putting better regulatory regimes in place, none of which Congress or anybody else seems to have a desire to do. The system functions as it has been set up to do, whether deliberately or not. We the people have chosen this by choosing our elected officials who tolerate, or even abet these problems. It comes full circle. The buck stops with you and me dear reader, and those who preceded us.
Close but no cigar. Supreme Court decided corporations had freedom of speech and could donate as they will. Neither was a voting issue. though I will grant you that the elected presidents and the senate pass judgment on who gets appointed. Recently it seemed that these appointments were to appease the religious right and not on real interpretation of the constitution. How to game the system of election, before claiming ti was rigged... But then I'm not an expert on the constitution, I've only read it a few times.
Trump seems to have it down to science: If I win, it's democracy. If I lose, it's rigged, so call out the Proud Boys and Hang Mike Pence.
The Founders must be rolling over in their graves.
it comes to the same thing
... with increasing difficulty (future generations would have a much better chance at success given publicly-financed campaigns).
Beside the point perhaps... but "shit splatters", as they say (you cannot have a public narrative regarding corruption without public discourse about corruption... which won't be a priority absent public concern about corruption - which itself cannot help but be corrupt to some degree, e.g. per Professor Reich's summary comments in his post).
PS: Two additional reads (one from the 2012 presidential race - which, by way of the candidates' backgrounds, brought the matter to light - and one with some policy prescriptions that are even more overdue now than then):
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7072516-the-buyout-of-america
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11814478-republic-lost
Rishi, I was not talking about corruption. Everything that I was pointing out about the Private Equity involvement in buying up companies, corporations, health care operations, etc. etc. Has been legal for the past decades. The laws were changed. They need to be altered to not allow what they are doing to the backbone of the US manufacturing, enterprises, and healthcare amongst many others, by reckless profiteering and saddeling what they buy with debt they used to purchase those organizations, to the extent that they are run out of business. Unfortunately not illegal, as it used to be…
Uhh... *weed* is illegal - William Randolph Hearst made sure of it.
= /
"(This is) a continuing moral bankrupting of many institutions based solely on those who have obscene amounts of money."
(People with all the money & political connections somehow wouldn't skew the system to their advantage? Any hypothesis as to how they got and kept that money for generations - say, in a single word...?)
Sad day when the MAGA Republicans and the Zionists determine who is to lead our institutions of higher learning. Going forward, bright students should boycott Harvard.
And viva the Muslims Huh Charles. Islam is more of a threat to diversity, equality, gays and women, than Jews ever were or will be. In fact it was Jews that led the civil rights movement, and the racists hate them for that. There were three men buried in an earth dam, outside of Philadelphia, MS two of them were Jews, one of them was an American descendant of slaves.
How many Muslims have fought and died for civil rights, other than their own.? Muslims don't give a shit about civil rights and equality, other than their own, and Osama bin Laden said" We will use your democracy to destroy you" Islam hates the west, our culture is not compatible with theirs Boko Haram means books are forbidden, or rather western culture is forbidden.
Palestinians are Muslims, save for a mere handful of Christians, who are second class citizens as they are "peoples of the book"
some have, effectively boycotted harvard that is. A wise person that. A question of values.
Criticizing Zionism, which means markedly different things to different people, is asking for an accusation of being either anti-Israel’s existence or anti-Semitic regardless of what you actually meant. I doubt you are for removing 7 million Jews for Israel. But that’s what many would think.
... but - to be perfectly honest - sad for whom?
*Our* institutions of higher learning are *public* institutions; kudos to those brave souls who "fight the good fight" ("those who can do", after all)... but there are plenty of us who really aren't that surprised when some of these things spill out into the open (would we honestly expect so-called "MAGA Republicans" to be honoring time-tested norms?)...
PS: Bright students never close their own doors (and, if/when they get the support they need, realize that "when some doors close, others open")...
You are wrong, Mr. Davidson.
Please maintain a civil dialogue here.
I don’t care what you think of me, but the truth is that the world is witnessing an unspeakable horror, a massive bombing attempting to obliterate the people of Gaza. This is a full scale genocide and our government is complicit. We are witnessing war crimes daily.
Give us a break Charles, You have swallowed Islamic propaganda whole sale, your info is one sided, and you totally lack knowledge of Israel and Islam.
No way is Israel trying to obliterate Muslims, there are billions of Muslims (HAMAS is Muslim FYI) and only 8 million Jews in Israel,
Israel is surrounded by Muslims (Arabs are Muslims and that identity trumps all even Arabness.
on the other hand it is a religious duty of Muslims to obliterate the Jews.
Says on in the HAMAS Charter, says so in Islams sacred Text, the haddith, like the haddith of al Bukhari, sahih (verse) 1295 and 1296, book 56, hadith 139 al Bukhari. quoted in art 7, paragraph 7 of the HAMAS covenant.
The only war crimes we are witnessing are being committed by Hamas
1. Holding civilians hostages
2. Raping women
3. Killing innocent civilians in their houses including babies
4. Firing rockets at civilian population centers
5. Using hospitals, schools, and mosques for military purposes
6. Using human shields
...
I believe it is a war crime to kill women and children, be they Israelis or Palestinians. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Only to you and your credibility is questionable on this subject.
Our Satmar scholars know that Zionists HATED observant, orthodox Jews. If there is a "hater" here, it's you.
Anyone here who recognizes that historically based religion is the culprit? I believe that humanity is one thing; it’s a disgrace to fight about religio-ethnic differences that result in suffering. Anybody agree with me?
I agree Stan, unfortunately the vast majority of the species, has been conned into forming their identity around a religion. So many gods, so little time.
As for the pseudo-religion called "Zionism," it rose to prominence in the 19th century among ethnic "Jews" who wanted nothing to do with (historical) orthodox Judaism -- which they berated and despised. If anything is antisemitic, it is Zionism.
There has been a Jewish community in Palestine for centuries, and they lived at peace with Muslims and Christians -- as did the many vibrant Jewish communities throughout the Muslim world.
Interesting perspective. Can you recommend any papers or books on this topic?
Thank you. I owe a debt to the "Committing High Reason" site for helping me -- who honors true Judaism -- get through these very difficult days.
www.committinghighreason.com
All the episodes are really good. Suggest the one with Miko Peled.
Satmar (Yiddish: סאַטמאַר; Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynasty. Following World War II, it was re-established in New York.
Satmar is one of the largest Hasidic dynasties in the world, with some 26,000 households. It is characterized by extreme conservatism, complete rejection of modern culture, and fierce anti-Zionism. Satmar sponsors a comprehensive education and media system in Yiddish, and its members use Yiddish as a primary language. The sect also sponsors and leads the Central Rabbinical Congress, which serves as an umbrella organization for other very conservative, anti-Zionist, and mostly Hungarian-descended ultra-Orthodox communities. (wikipedia)
Christianity has it's pacifists (Quaker and Amish) and Catholicism had it's dissenters
we call them Protest ants.
Apparently the Satmar Jews, who number only 26,000 didn't have to suffer the holocaust, safely ensconsed in NY.
I would not put much confidence in the "didn't have to suffer the holocaust" quip. Their Grand Rebbe was in Bergen-Belsen camp until late 1944.
Thanks for the info, but how many Satmar Jews were incarcerated, and how many survived? Between the two of us, I've always questioned how so many infants, babies and toddlers survived the camps and the final solution, when there was a selection at the station where the guards separated men from women and babies. You would think that the first to perish in such conditions would be precisely the ones that have survived into their 70's, 80's and 90's
How did this Grand Rebbe survive? It would seem that he would be a prime target for the gas chamber.
Then again maybe he survived by being a Judas goat, a capo.
All universities should be publicly funded. That would prevent zillionaires from controlling operations. In addition, it’s difficult to comprehend that those three university presidents should present a legalistic answer to a simple question about intent for genocide. Evidently before the hearing, they consulted with their legal departments, who advised them to equivocate. Big mistake: you don’t provide a legalistic answer when the situation demands a common-sense answer.
And all national campaigns should be publicly funded. It would change EVERYTHING that ails us.
And get rid of “Citizens United”!
We have to vote out repubs in order to get rid of Citizens United and McCutcheon. Dem tried some years back in the senate. Every R (except for two abstentions) voted no.
We also have to change the supreme court.
we're all waiting to see whether things have now tipped so far that there is no return to normal. How do we return to a media landscape where many of the outlets don't preach some form of sedition ? How do we roll back the influence of money on our elected officials so that they start doing the right things to curtail corruption ? How long before the Supreme Court can be changed to one that supports democratic principles instead of undermining them ? Montesquieu wrote that a state may change in 2 ways: through correcting itself, or through corruption. Which will it be ?
And end the filibuster.
EXACTLY! Then we won’t have Ted Cruz wasting taxpayers money (nearly $200,000 annually) recite Mary Had a Little Lamb for 12 hours or so. That was just UNBELIEVABLE! A grown man that is supposed to be responsible and put the country’s best interest ahead of such juvenile pettiness. I don’t know how he gets voted back in unless it is rigged in his favor (like Trump tried to do in Georgia. But luckily there was a recording and they are STILL debating it).
I don't know the details, but I know that Cruz is from Texas, and if you ever read Molly Ivins (RIP) you would know Texas politics can get weird.
I agree that all national campaigns should be publicly funded... and I'll add that state campaigns should be funded by each state.
I prefer that private colleges... especially those founded by religious groups should be privately funded. No Federal or State money should go to religiously sponsored institutions. And, I am a graduate of one such institution.
YUP. Right on.
I’ve written a letter to our lousy local newspaper that political debates should be broadcast exclusively on public radio and TV. That would demand zero dollars from the candidates. However, the newspaper wasn’t interested in my idea and failed to print it. Let’s face it: it’s all about money and influence.
The business world is all about that. Our government does not have to be.
The monied interests would oppose your idea.
Yes, of course. Money talks, good ideas walk.
I agree that a legalistic answer was not appropriate, but I doubt that a common sense answer would have been sufficient. I think that a political response was called for. Not easy when the situation was a five hour grilling by a hostile US House (i.e. Republican) committee. And the crucial part came from a very hostile, Harvard educated, NY Republican Congresswoman.
Nevertheless, she failed the test.
I would not have passed the test. Would you? It was a "Gotcha" moment.
I would have made it clear that the institution I’m in charge of opposes speech that advocates genocide.
What a wonderful idea. But...I'll rain on this parade...the right wing Christian Nationalists, and all other "claimed" religious sects will demand their school vouchers and....
Not that simple. Some universities were founded on religious principles. I am a graduate of one such school (Baylor). As usual, the answers to a given question problem are usually complex.
Hell! We were worried about elementary schools teaching pole dancing!
And book bans. And slavery that was actually an apprenticeship for blacks who could learn a trade. We were worried about the outright disgust thrown in faces of LGBTQ+. students in public schools. For crying out loud! Why pay all that money for a Harvard education if the students are not allowed to have free speech? The wealthy know they are the powerful. Everything touched by greed fails. Greed is the most corrosive solvent known to man. Good bye, Harvard.
There is plenty to worry about when it comes to book bans. IF they stifle important historical knowledge. And if they cause LGBTQ kids to kill themselves.
But there is a laudable and lovely movement now called "I Read Banned Books" (I think it is) which I hope will help to keep thoughts of young people free, seen and heard, and well informed about their history and the history of people unlike themselves.
It is the right call. I usually agree with you. But not here. Never mind the real issues in her research, if a leader of the world's greatest private university cannot speak clearly about standing firm on rampant anti-Semitism, she should not lead. It is naïve to think that deep-pocketed (and even modest donors) don't want to have a sound leader who can represent their alma mater and basic decency.
Few if any of these pro Palestinian students at Harvard and other universities were actually advocating genocide. You can argue about their rhetoric, but this looks like a case of pro Israel donors wanting to penalize or limit pro Palestinian arguments and viewing uninhibited criticism of Israel as inherently antisemitic.
DINNYC, whether they are openly advocating genocide of the Jews, only demonstrates that what passes as higher education is a fraud. For they lack not only knowledge, thus ignorant, curiosity, are easily swayed and brainwashed and lack critical thinking skills, all it takes to motivate them is to have some idiot or fifth columnist to imprint themselves on their psyche and worse they are lemmings, that are so desirous of peer approval, that they will follow the loud mouth "leader" over a cliff.
Ms Gay, well being an American Descendant of Slaves, had her own cross to burn.
Correct me if necessary, but I believe that ex-President Gay is either a Haitian immigrant, or a descendant of Haitian immigrants. Whether they were ever slaves doesn't seem to be relevant to me.
Are you trying to controversialize the motives of descendants of slaves, and if so, why? Your comment seems to be an affirmation of the institution of slavery.
Hardly an affirmation of the institution of slavery, But an observation that Blacks are treated and viewed differently in America. people of color who are not American Descendants of Slaves, are looked upon and treated differently than Americans who are American Descendants of Slave. Except maybe what Malcolm X called House slaves, for instance Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker, Kanye, and Candace Owens who have one thing in common, white spouses or boy/girl friends and subsequently Quislings,Stephens in Django Unchained. There are gay Quislings also, like Peter Thiel, and Log Cabin Republicans, and over 40% of Republican Women are Quislings as well. Check out this chart:https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/gender-composition/by/state/among/party-affiliation/republican-lean-rep/
Don't know what a Quisling is, google it. A Quisling is one who sells out their own people, for power as a sock puppet for what they perceive as the power structure and the route to power, money and protection.
Do you want to take me to task some more, have at it.
As regards Gay, yes there was racism involved in the mix, especially as launched by Rufo and his right wing clones. Her main sin, was her failure to denounce the HAMASian genocide of Jews.
That is an offer which ends in a mud-wrestling match.
I get your points, but I don't have an extra hour to bat them around today.
Um, no. Widespread numbers of "pro-Palestinian" (or what seems to be, pro-Hamas) students are adopting terrorist talking points and carrying signs calling for the elimination of the Jewish State. It takes a special level of denial or dishonesty to just blame "rich" donors, which seems like code for Jewish donors or to sweep reality aside to fit your narrative.
Isn’t it amazing that free speech is a one way street with Conservatives.
Harvard is ranked dead last by FIRE in it's free speech ranking, 248 out of 248. https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-fires-college-free-speech-rankings
Hamas/Israel is such a complicated situation. I have two close friends who are very conservative/orthodox Jews who have lived off and on in Israel for the past 40 years. They have lots of family there. They are intelligent people, but they are blind to Israel's role in this whole mess. Wish we could turn the clock back 80 years and do a better job of establishing the state of Israel without oppressing the people of Gaza. I truly believe that the people who criticize Israel also criticize Muslim countries. They are all racists towards anyone who isn't lily white. Hamas is horrible, but so is Bebe.
Almost every made up border and land boundary created around, during, and just after WW1 has been a complete and utter disaster.
So is Bebe. I like it!
Richard D. is a genuine troll.
Yeah, all my homies hate Dick Davidson.
Under the logic of anticolonialism, why aren't they asking the US to return California to Mexico?
Happily. But you need to admit that you are an idiot.
so the 2 women in that exchange have been forced out. but not the male. i do think he gave a "better" answer, slightly so, but still i see a concerted effort to harass women here.
also since i'm alum of new college, charter class, i see shades of desantis at work here.
A lot of this comes from Desantis's mouthpiece Chris Rufo. He also brought out Gary's plagiarism.
Yes, DeSatan, who has no integrity at all.
Who's that? . . . Oh! Puddingfingers do you mean? Yeah, that guy's a JOKE.
What male? There were 3 female university presidents. Maybe I missed something...
Oh please, if women can't manage the public safety of students at a university, they don't deserve to have the job. When people are throwing smoke bombs at the campus police, the job of the university president is to protect the safety of the staff and the students. Feminism means that women can be strong and manage a campus just as much as men.
What’s his name?
The 3rd president, the President of MIT is a woman, Sally Kornbluth.
No Robert, the dangerous precedent was set when they didn’t fire her after discovering and confirming her mendacious and duplicitous educational journey — and for the incompetence in how she handled the response to Hamas’ sadistic, joy-filled killing spree on October 7.
Yes and the sadistic annihilating inhuman, joyful terrorism continues to be rained down on innocents by the political masters of Israel too.
Wherever over the decades has been the “common sense” amongst them and those distant across the Atlantic , to work out peaceful cohabitation?
For a people shockingly subject to a planned program of genocide in the middle of the last century, it is breathtakingly incomprehensible that their leaders and followers have been so blinded that they cannot see that they have become perpetrators of the same against another group of people and that it is their own actions in doing so which has created their “ enemy “, Hamas.
The whole heartbreaking situation in that small patch of the planet bordering the Eastern coast of The Mediterranean has been a long weeping ( real tears) painfully festering sore for all who live there; the oppressed, dispossessed, displaced and the suspicious, paranoid descendants of those subjected to that mid 20th century Reign of Terror.
No ancient biblical claim to a piece of land is more sacred than the lives of a people who have lived there for eons.
Fallacious argumentation will not help you or the sadistic, mass murderers you choose to defend. What is happening to innocent Gazans is terrible and unfortunate, but largely unavoidable. War *always* involves injuries and deaths of non-combatants; however, Hamas initiated this war and Israel has every right -- and obligation -- to protect its citizens. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/on-strategy-law-and-morality-in-israel-s-gaza-operation
Oh ... and just “ largely unavoidable “?
Mass murder by missile is just a little bit sad? Because it’s done from pressing a button from a clinically safe distance?
Open your eyes and see what the rest of the world has seen for decades.
I’m not offering you or anyone else any kind of “ fallacious argument”. No argument at all, more observations garnered over at least the last 50 years. 😟
I do not defend any “ mass murderers” of any origin.
Try to step out of your bubble and think about what bought 7th Oct about. What lay the groundwork for the creation of Hamas?
You think it’s OK to murder women and children and non Hamas supporting Palestinian males just because they’re killed by a missile smashing into their apartment block.
Death is death & terror is terror. Do you think the people in Gaza have not been living in terror since October?
Suffering and ultimately death due to starvation, dehydration, spread of disease, is a form of torture and it seems the “ safe No attack areas” that Gazan’s are being letter dropped to move to... like moving humans around like game pieces on a board, in order to save their lives, ... don’t actually exist.
And how do you know that the Hamas on 7 Oct were “ joyful”?
Were you there?
My first response to the Hamas attack was that this would be dire for the Gazans - who have not had an easy time living under Israeli occupation and blockades for decades in a situation described by many as "Apartheid." When I lived in and attended college in Israel in 1967-68 beginning just a few days after the end of the "Six Day War," movement between Israel and the West Bank was free and open. I know because I went there often. That's not been the case for many, many decades.
However "Dire" has scaled new and unimaginable heights in Gaza now.
Regarding Dr Gay's incomplete citations, the NYT presented a number of them. IMO they were perhaps shoddy, but in each case cited, if she didn't directly quote the source, they were included in the bibliography.
As to the hearing before Congress, this was a hit piece orchestrated by the Trump wing. Although I didn't hear the entire testimony, I heard enough to understand that the university leaders were trying to thread the needle between free speech and righteous condemnation. One of the pillars of university is to promote freedom of expression, as this is how new thoughts are examined and tested.
So I heard nothing wrong with the testimonies given, when heard in full context rather than cherry-picked as the media/social media is alt to do.
Finally, again IMO, the idea that one can't be pro-Jewish/Israel without fully supporting any and everything the Israeli government wants to do is silly. The Israeli government under Netanyahu has done much harm for their own cause, often with the support of US policy. This must come to an end. Support Israel's right to exist, YES. Give them a blank check to do whatever they wish, including wiping Palestinians off the map, NO.
Completely Agree! Well said.
The problem with that argument is that is IS Hamas' sworn goal to wipe a Jewish Israel off the map, a goal they have relentlessly worked towards for 40 years, a goal funded with BILLIONS in cash and arms from the Muslim world. Israel isn't fighting 2M in Gaza: they are fighting a majority of the 1B Muslims world wide who have embraced the lie that Palestinians are the rightful occupants of those lands. To believe that you have to be both historically ignorant and willfully prejudiced.
There are numerous problems with your arguments: U.N. resolutions going back to 1948, the Zionist movement which has always been present and now controls the Israeli government, the idea that Israel is a democracy yet makes Palestinians second (or no) class citizens, the blind eye by government officials toward violence in the West Bank against peaceful Palestinians who have lived there for centuries, the ongoing a d ever-increasing attempt to push Palestinians off of the land and continuance to build settlements against U.N. resolutions in the West Bank, the funneling of money with Netanyahu's approval to Hamas both the "placate" and to undermine the PLO....not to mention the seemingly endless amounts of money we give to Israel with "no strings attached. You are the one who isn't"historically ignorant and willfully prejudiced".
I am QUITE WELL-VERSED on the history of this conflict. It is complex and not nearly as simple as you make it out to be. Neither the Arab world nor the Israeli government are without fault now or in the past. The question is how to move forward in a way likely to bring peace and stability. Killing more Palestinians and Arabs is not the way forward from a moral standpoint nor is it in the long-term interests of the United States nor the world.
You cite U.N. resolutions going back to 1948 - but what about the UK's role in creating countries? Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc? What about ALL the countries of the Americas? All formed by European powers after subjugating indigenous peoples through war, disease, effective (and actual) slavery rendering those people 2nd class citizens.
History, as you admit, is replete with instances like this - yet too often Israel is cited as though it were an anomaly.
And while Muslims, Baha'i, Christians, etc may chafe at being in a theocracy - they are tolerated and given rights unheard of for minorities in totalitarian countries like most of the Muslim world, China, Russia, N Korea, etc.
How many Jews have those rights in countries outside Europe & the Americas?
Sorry, but your attempts to make it seem that TINY Israel with it's miniscule population is a threat is absurd.
"Palestinians have lived there for centuries" but who ARE Palestinians?
Historically people in Palestine have been Jews, Christians, Muslims, Baha'i, etc etc etc.
Genetically? NOT Arab. Those in the Gaza Strip ARE now predominantly Arab but only because the 150,000-200,000 Palestinian Muslims who moved there then married with Arabic people effectively imported to swell the population 10X over a time period when the world's population went up only 3X. Another Hamas agenda: an endless supply of canon fodder.
It is a Hamas agenda to paint a picture of a homogenous Muslim land that was destroyed by foreign influence in 1948. Palestine was NEVER homogenous, not ethnically and not religously.
Yes the BIG question IS "how to move forward in a way likely to bring peace and stability." Unfortunately as long as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, etc continue to support Hamas, continue to support an agenda to destroy Jewish Israel there cannot be a path forward to peace.
The last 40 years have proven that over and over and over.
https://www.rsn.org/001/jaccuse-an-open-letter-to-hamas-apologists.html?print=1
And it CERTAINLY isn't in the interest of Israel's long term security. If Israel continues down this path, it will squander what little good will the world has remaining for it and is risking the loss of US continued support.
Whereas Hamas will never lose the support, financially, militarily, etc of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, etc. So it's a foregone conclusion that Hamas will ultimately achieve their goal to wipe all Jews from their homeland.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/harvard-president-claudine-gay-hit-with-six-new-charges-of-plagiarism/
I wouldn't trust any so-called reporting coming from the right-winged Free Beacon
BTW that so-called plagiarism is a "nothing burger". It is easily possible that the same basic conclusions were reached by both authors and that therefore their summaries and train of thought would be similar. If there were to be found numerous passages quoting verbatim without citation (as in pages of material--these are only a few thoughts) then I would be more convinced. The examples in the freebeacon are on very generic topics of interest to anyone in the field of study. Let's see some examinations of entire works to see the whole picture. If only a dozen or so "examples" can be found over a course of 20+ years of writing out of context of the works as a whole, that is in the realm of possibility of either coincidental thought/conclusions of scholars in the same field reading the same sources.
Try giving reading a try; you might actually learn something. https://freebeacon.com/campus/harvard-president-claudine-gay-hit-with-six-new-charges-of-plagiarism/
I can read. I just came to a different conclusion. If more complete evidence comes to light, I'm open to changing my opinion. So far I haven't seen anything compelling, though certain political operatives (as in the freebeacon) keep trying. BTW, the NYT was among the first to present some cited questions of Dr Gay's scholarship. Those examples weren't compelling either. You know that Dr Gay had Harvard do a complete review of her works, right???
And don't tell me that "wokism" and Dr Gay's being a Black woman/civil rights advocate has nothing to do with all of this.
For example, does Dr Gay use NO citations at all in most of her works? What about bibliographies? I sincerely doubt that she would have even been nominated for Harvard president if her scholarship had been so obviously poor. This would have raised questions (and likely revolt) of any faculty she hoped to lead. Could she have been more forthcoming about some thoughts in her writings which might have come from reading other sources? Perhaps. But at some point a scholar forms his/her own opinions. Just because it matches someone else's opinions (and is expressed similarly) in some cases doesn't automatically scream of plagiarism. The entirety of the person's body of work should be examined, not cherry-picked, as has happened here. It is clear that there was a target put on her back by right winged anti-woke money power brokers.
I say this as someone who wrote a Masters thesis and considered doing a Phd.
Worrisome precedent and repercussions when wealthy donors can act this way.
Precedent? It's the status quo. Rich donors to EVERY institution which relies on donations to thrive have always expected to have influence - and in general receive it.
Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, you name a university in which that is not the case - and it's not limited to education.
At Harvard just 100 years ago major donors exerted their influence to keep out undesirables such as women (50.4% of US population), black (14.6%)s, Jews (2.4%) etc.
At least we don't live in a totalitarian system like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Trumpistan...
Worse it shows that rich donors want control of the university and to hell with the stated administration and stated oversight. The rich with their money want control of everything
Rich donors to EVERY institution which relies on donations to thrive have always expected to have influence - and in general receive it. Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, you name a university in which that is not the case. And it's not limited to education.
And at Harvard just 100 years ago major donors exerted their influence to keep out undesirables such as women (50.4% of US population), black (14.6%)s, Jews (2.4%) etc.
At least we don't live in a totalitarian system like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Trumpistan...
I find it difficult to believe that there was no other way to resolve this to include open debate. The Corporation sounds painfully ingrown and imbalanced. And, yes, it appears the role of the President has devolved into a glorified fund raiser. And, why? Look at the size of Harvard's endowment?!??! This to me sounds like a lack of courage and moral imagination.