Utopia, you are standing in it!

Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts documenting BDS fails.

Political 

German Protestant church cancels BDS event linked to Palestinian terrorism

The Protestant Church of Germany has canceled an event that was scheduled to feature two hardcore pro-BDS activists, one of whom has ties to fund-raising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the EU and the US have designated a terrorist organization.

“We at Church Day have a clear attitude and have therefore asked the @rosaluxstiftung to disinvite the controversial speakers or to cancel the event,” the church tweeted on Thursday. “The foundation has canceled the event planned for Friday.”

‘Jerusalem Post’ exposé leads to closure of BDS group’s bank account in Germany

After a series of Jerusalem Post investigative reports on the bank account of the pro-BDS group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, the German Bank for…

Israeli academic Shany Mor provided some clarity on a major element of the Labour antisemitism scandal that’s typically ignored, even by those who’ve been the most outspoken in their opposition to the rise of Jew hatred under Jeremy Corbyn.

The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism itself – which Corbyn tried unsuccessfully to resist – states clearly that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”.

But, such regular criticism is not what Mor is referring to. 

He’s calling out, as central to the Corbyn ideology, the pathological, obsessive hatred of Israel, one which views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a binary story of good and evil, and which views the Jewish state – indeed any Jewish state – as inherently (indeed, irredeemably) racist, and morally beyond the pale.  It’s this ideology – or, as Mor put it, theology – which invariably leads to the conclusion…

The other day I posted Steve Pinker’s discussion of his connections with convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, now facing additional charges in New York that will likely put him away for the rest of his life. Pinker, who had been accused of consorting with Epstein—indeed, of being complicit in Epstein’s crimes by ignoring them or not publicly criticizing the man—dispelled this idea, saying that he finds Epstein’s behavior, as revealed by the media and court documents, reprehensible.

Pinker added that he never liked Epstein, never took money from him, but did do one small task interpreting a statute for Alan Dershowitz, who was defending Epstein in his first set of charges (a task that Pinker now says he regrets). And Pinker sometimes found himself at meetings with Epstein, like Lawrence Krauss’s Origins Project anniversary celebration.

Pinker’s explanation, of course, was deemed insufficient, and I should have predicted that. Those determined…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, like Ilhan Omar, is from Somalia.  Hirsi Ali underwent extensive Islamist brainwashing to make her hate Jews, which she describes in the article below from the Wall Street Journal. (It’s paywalled, but judicious inquiry might yield a copy.)

Hirsi Ali’s description of the Jew-hatred endemic in Islam, and how it’s drilled into you at every turn, is scary.  It happens at home, it happens in the mosques, it happens in the madrassas, and, since in countries like Somalia, Islam is both a personal faith and a public ideology, you can’t avoid it.

Say what you will about Judaism, the inculcated hatred of Muslims and Islam is not endemic in that faith. Sure, you can probably find instances of rabbis teaching others to despise Islam, but you’d be hard pressed to make the case that formal education in hatred of the “other” is equally pervasive in both Judaism…

Julian L. Simon was an economist who showed how capitalism and population growth have been hugely beneficial for the standard of living of people all over the world. His book The Ultimate Resource is highly recommended for all anarcho-capitalists. For those who have not read it and would like to hear the main ideas from the man himself, check out the following video interview:

For a more detailed introduction see:

The Anglo-American alliance was dominated in 1943 by negotiations over the military strategy to pursue in the European theatre and by the basis for the reinstatement of British access to the secrets of the development of the atomic bomb from which they had been previously excluded. Against the backdrop of growing American power and preponderance in the alliance, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt, along with their respective colleagues and subordinates, held a blizzard of meetings, conferences, and trans-Atlantic telephone calls supplemented by a stream of cables and dispatch of various emissaries to Washington and London. Churchill and the British argued in favor of the Mediterranean strategy and reliance on the strategic bombing of Germany, while the Americans supported a cross-channel invasion of the continent in 1944.

Philip Padgett links British support for the Overlord landings with the return to shared development of the Atomic Bomb in his…

As you surely know if you’re a Democrat, the party is fracturing along progressive/moderate lines, with the “progressives” comprising four newly-elected but vociferous members of the Justice Democrats (JDs): Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan and Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts. Their stance to the left of “mainstream” Democrats has clearly influenced the Presidential candidates from that party, who, in their two debates, seem to compete to see who could be the most “woke”. (Of course, it’s common for a Democrat to campaign left but then, when nominated for the candidate, head more toward the center.)

The three articles below, from the Washington Post (first article) and New York Times (other two), recount the fractious relationship between these four and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (The Post article is behind a paywall, but is derived largely from Maureen Dowd’s piece in the NYT):

I…

After Jane was proclaimed Queen she refused to name her husband Dudley as king, because that would require an Act of Parliament. She would agree only to make him Duke of Clarence. This was all to the chagrin of her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberlan, who desired to be the power behind the throne.

The Duke of Northumberland faced a number of key tasks to consolidate his power after Edward VI’s death. Most importantly, he had to isolate and, ideally, capture Mary Tudor, the rightful heir, to prevent her from gathering support. As soon as Mary was sure of King Edward’s demise, she left her residence at Hunsdon and set out to East Anglia, where she began to rally her supporters. Northumberland set out from London with troops on July 14 with the intent to capture Mary. The Privy Council switched their allegiance and proclaimed Mary queen in London, on…

As Israel’s do-over election approaches and political alliances form and reshape, parties on both the right and the left have some big decisions to make. With Ehud Barak’s formal reentry to politics, Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett’s decisions whether to try their luck again or sit this cycle out, new party chiefs for Labor and Meretz, and the Arab parties’ efforts to reconstitute the electorally successful but politically fractious Joint List, there are lots of machinations taking place. Here are two of the biggest ones to look out for in the slightly more than two months that remain until Israelis vote on September 17.

Where does Barak fit in on the left?

Ehud Barak made a temporary splash with his return to Israeli politics through a new vehicle that he has named the Israel Democratic Party, rather than attempting to rejoin Labor or link up with his fellow former chiefs…

Several times this week I’ve seen people of low character go after Steve Pinker because of his supposed association with accused sexual predator and child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (Note: my own view is that there’s overwhelming evidence that Epstein is guilty and, after a fair trial, deserves to go to jail for decades.)

But that’s not enough. I see articles where, on no evidence at all, scientists and atheists are tarred because they either knew Epstein or associated with him. This innuendo is meant to imply that those people knew about Epstein’s crimes and either ignored them or, perhaps, even participated in them. In other words, they’re complicit. I could reproduce several examples, but I suspect readers have already seen them, and I’m not going to highlight and send traffic to miscreants involved in slander or character assassination.

But this kind of stuff disturbed me so much—since Pinker is a…