He suggested Jews wouldn't rely on Israel if they felt more supported by Americans

'Hunt down Latinos'

'Are you an Emmy winner over there in the back of the room?'

'The bottom of your chin looks like a butt, sir'

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On Aug. 31 Yale’s 23rd president, Peter Salovey, announced he would be stepping down. Since this announcement, much has transpired in the world of American higher education: the resignation of Harvard and UPenn presidents, the creation of campus encampments nationwide, and the cancelation of commencements at Columbia and USC. These developments point to an American higher education system that is malfunctioning. The breakdown we are witnessing at Yale’s peer institutions will continue until leaders are chosen for their courage to apply wisdom to divisive issues.  America’s Founders understood the importance of higher education. Of all his great accomplishments, only three made it onto Thomas Jefferson’s headstone: Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia. Jefferson knew that America’s ability to be great and good–UVA’s motto–depended on the presence of high-functioning universities. America’s first polymath, Ben Franklin, famously said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Framers like Franklin and Jefferson understood the value of academic pursuits, and their example lit a spark that motivated generations of Americans to pursue higher education.  When functioning correctly, a nation’s universities serve as a formidable asset. It isn’t difficult to draw a straight line between America’s great achievements and its world-class academic institutions. Would Jonas Salk invent a vaccine for polio without the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine? Would George H.W. Bush end the Cold War peacefully without Yale College? Would Sergey Brin and Larry Page create Google without Stanford University’s Computer Science Department? These leaders, and countless more, received educations enabling them to create and lead in ways positively impacting the lives of everyday Americans. Our nation can’t afford to disrupt these pipelines of educated talent. And it isn’t enough for graduates to just be talented. The success of our nation depends on universities producing graduates with values motivating them to be productive, grateful, and honorable citizens.    At Yale, much has changed since its founding in the 18th Century, but one thing has not–Urim and Thummim, the Hebrew translated as Light and Truth. Since these words first appeared on Ezra Stiles’ diploma in 1746, they have served the institution as a guiding light. As the Yale Corporation navigates its search for its 24th president, I urge it to incorporate a new Hebrew word as a beacon. The word is Daas/Da’at, which means the application of wisdom. It is critical for Yale’s next president to exemplify this important trait. Without it, Yale will fall victim to many of the fights plaguing peer institutions.  The past decade has seen college campuses transform into one of the key battlegrounds of America’s culture war. At almost every turn, leadership has failed to wield the necessary wisdom to confront the barrage of divisive issues. A lack of wisdom resulted in UPenn’s former president stating, “It is a context-dependent decision” when asked by Congresswoman Stefanik if “calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes bullying and harassment.”  Another episode lacking wisdom surfaced on Oct. 7, when Yale’s Dean Burgwell “Burgie” Howard retweeted a crude, one-sided TikTok explanation of the conflict as Hamas carried out its massacre. With this post, Howard spread a message indicating Israel believes it is entitled to the land because an “ancient book of made-up stories” says so, and its citizens ask if Palestinians would “be happy enough to just piss off and die.” In an email I wrote to Dean Howard, I explained: “It is the instinct that concerns me. Why is your instinct to amplify a simplistic explanation designed to be divisive? It seems only logical that a Yale dean who leads student life should avoid this type of messaging at all costs. Yale’s leaders should be modeling wisdom and moral clarity so its students develop the conscience and moral fiber needed to properly respond to tragedies.” There are a few U.S. university leaders currently modeling the wisdom our nation’s academic institutions so desperately need. One example is Ben Sasse, a Yale PhD, who is leading the University of Florida through the same storm impacting institutions like Columbia, Harvard, and UPenn. Sasse’s values are the difference maker in generating clear messaging: In the wake of the Hamas massacre, while many university presidents were gripped by moral relativism, President Sasse wrote, “This is a fallen world. When evil raises its head, as it has in recent days, it is up to men and women of conscience and courage to draw strength from the truth and commit themselves to the work of building something better–to the work of pursuing justice and peace.” When dealing with student protestors who broke university rules he said, “This is not complicated: The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children–they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences.” President Sasse has taken decisive and principled actions because he understands that failing to do so will impede his institution from fulfilling its core mission.  The future of Yale depends on who the Yale Corporation chooses as the next president. As the Corporation narrows its list it should be focused on one trait: Daas. When a president embodies the application of wisdom, Yale will overcome divisive issues and produce graduates with the values our nation demands.   This article was originally published by RealClearEducation. The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post The Most Important Trait for Yale’s Next President: Courage appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The same day the Biden administration and European Union offered their condolences over the death of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi—the “Butcher of Tehran”—the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, sought the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli war council members over imaginary war crimes. The first question we need to ask is: Karim Khan and what army? It’s not worth taking a deep dive into the intricacies of law and war, because Hamas does not recognize any moral or legal restrictions on warfare and the International Criminal Court has no real jurisdiction over anyone, anyway. Khan says, “Nobody is above the law.” But there is no such thing as international law. The term is a contradiction and a fantasy. Law is a system of rules regulating citizens—in our case, with the consent of the governed—and is overseen with due process and enforced with penalties. Americans do not recognize any international government, so there can’t be “international law.” Though we occasionally enter treaties with other nations—neither the U.S. nor Israel signed onto the ICC agreement in 2002—the ultimate authority that governs us is the Constitution. We do not recognize the ability of illiberal European institutions to punish our citizens, and neither does Israel. None of that is to mention that the ICC is an enemy of the Jewish State masquerading as a court. Just read the indictment. To begin with, the ICC draws a moral equivalence between the actions of Israel and Hamas. Need it be repeated, Hamas—which even the EU designates as a terrorist organization—targets civilians, women, and children for murder and rape and torture. It is still holding hostages, among them Americans. It does not recognize any rules of warfare. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was never indicted by the ICC. Nor has Bashar al Assad. Nor has Xi Jinping. Nor have dozens of other genocidal dictators. Netanyahu is charged with “extermination,” “starvation of civilians,” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population,” among other imaginary crimes. The ICC presumably relies on the wholly conjured fatality statistics provided by Hamas and spread by the media and the Left. The Israel Defense Forces estimates it has killed around 15,000 terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or half of the fatalities—which is a better civilian-to-combatant ratio in an urban warfare setting than perhaps any in history. Notice as well that indictments only charge members of right-center Likud who are in the war cabinet. Right now, Israel has a unity government. Every major political party in Israel is in basic agreement that Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza. There is no government coalition that could survive that does not hunt down the remaining Hamas battalions. And the war cabinet, overseeing the decisions that brought on the ICC indictments, features Netanyahu’s biggest political rival, Benny Gantz, as well. Yet he is not charged. Placing blame on this one man falls in line with the American Left’s rhetoric about Israel’s democratically elected unity government. Using Netanyahu as a straw man is a politically expedient way to attack Israel’s democracy. The entire point of the ICC indictments is to further isolate Israel and reward Hamas. (Israel was about to host Khan to explain their decision-making process, but the “prosecutor” was not interested.) In this regard, the real tell is that the alleged crimes cover actions in both the “territory of Israel” and the “State of Palestine.” The ICC creates a fictitious “state” and downgrades an existing one to a “territory”—even though it is recognized by most United Nations member states. There is no Palestine. An independent Arab Palestine has never existed. There is no historical precedent for it. It didn’t exist under Ottoman rule or the British Mandate or, in the end, under a United Nations Partition Plan that was rejected by every single Arab state and Palestinian leadership. It didn’t exist when the Palestinians were ruled by governments in Jordan and Egypt (a time when there was virtually no international pressure to create an independent “Palestine”), and it didn’t come into existence when the Arab states rejected Israel’s peace gestures after the 1967 and 1973 wars. If Palestinians keep supporting nihilism and terrorism, such a state may never exist. And it won’t make one lick of difference how the U.N. or ICC or EU describes Gaza in press releases. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.  The post Lack of Jurisdiction and Biased Indictment: ICC’s Imaginary Case Against Israel appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Emergency Preparedness – Summer Storms, Tornadoes and Hurricanes

They Are Delusional

UCLA Protesters Set Up a New Encampment Yesterday