For a Growing Number of Arabs, Iran—Not Israel—Is the True Threat

Having fled Iraq after having their home seized by a Shiite militia taking orders from Tehran, Hussain Abdul-Hussain’s family relocated to Lebanon—another Arab nation under the thumb of Iran-backed guerrillas—where the recent bank collapse eliminated their savings. To Abdul-Hussain, who now lives in the U.S., the Lebanese economic woes are the direct result of over a decade of domination by Iranian proxy Hizballah. He urges presidential candidate Joe Biden to keep this in mind when formulating his policies toward the Islamic Republic:

The continued presence of Hizballah, a terrorist organization under U.S. law, kept Lebanon in a state of perpetual war. This stifled growth and forced the government to fund itself by borrowing from local banks, thus using depositors’ money. And to buy off the local oligarchy and make it support its unconstitutional militia, Hizballah used the state to reward loyal oligarchs. Reform thus became impossible, and corruption inseparable from the terrorist group’s very existence.

This is why my sister, my wife, myself, and many of our Lebanese-American friends felt disappointment when reading Biden’s promise to rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran, and give Israel more arms to defend itself against Iranian proxies. Biden’s statement signaled that he does not plan to help the Lebanese and the Iraqis get rid of Iranian militias, but only to manage and to contain them.

Contrary to what the media often claim, a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians is not the key to “true peace” in the Middle East. In fact, whatever happens to Palestinians does not affect our families and friends in Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq. What happens to the Iran regime, however, does. In our world, Israel is not the enemy, the Iranian regime is.

Read more at Medium

More about: Arab World, Iran, Iran-Iraq war, Iraq, Joseph Biden, Lebanon

Universities Are in Thrall to a Constituency That Sees Israel as an Affront to Its Identity

Commenting on the hearings of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday about anti-Semitism on college campuses, and the dismaying testimony of three university presidents, Jonah Goldberg writes:

If some retrograde poltroon called for lynching black people or, heck, if they simply used the wrong adjective to describe black people, the all-seeing panopticon would spot it and deploy whatever resources were required to deal with the problem. If the spark of intolerance flickered even for a moment and offended the transgendered, the Muslim, the neurodivergent, or whomever, the fire-suppression systems would rain down the retardant foams of justice and enlightenment. But calls for liquidating the Jews? Those reside outside the sensory spectrum of the system.

It’s ironic that the term colorblind is “problematic” for these institutions such that the monitoring systems will spot any hint of it, in or out of the classroom (or admissions!). But actual intolerance for Jews is lathered with a kind of stealth paint that renders the same systems Jew-blind.

I can understand the predicament. The receptors on the Islamophobia sensors have been set to 11 for so long, a constituency has built up around it. This constituency—which is multi-ethnic, non-denominational, and well entrenched among students, administrators, and faculty alike—sees Israel and the non-Israeli Jews who tolerate its existence as an affront to their worldview and Muslim “identity.” . . . Blaming the Jews for all manner of evils, including the shortcomings of the people who scapegoat Jews, is protected because, at minimum, it’s a “personal truth,” and for some just the plain truth. But taking offense at such things is evidence of a mulish inability to understand the “context.”

Shocking as all that is, Goldberg goes on to argue, the anti-Semitism is merely a “symptom” of the insidious ideology that has taken over much of the universities as well as an important segment of the hard left. And Jews make the easiest targets.

Read more at Dispatch

More about: Anti-Semitism, Israel on campus, University