At UC Berkeley, the Heckler’s Veto Prevails

Sept. 27 2024

At the University of California, Berkeley, a strange but revealing twist on the usual campus anti-Israel activism took place. Two faculty members, Steven Hayward and John Yoo, invited the Knesset member Simcha Rothman to come speak about judicial overreach in Israel and his controversial attempts at reform. “But,” writes Hayward, “it got weird.”

The protestors inside the lecture hall who shut down the event were mostly left-wing Jews. Outside the lecture hall was the rabble of anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas demonstrators who took the event as an opportunity to attack any Jews at hand—even left-wing Jews.

Although as mentioned the chief of police and vice-chancellor were present, there were no serious efforts to arrest any of the disruptors. The official explanation was that the police feared that “both sides” would escalate into physical violence.

And despite the [administration’s] boast that such things cannot be allowed to happen again, they will until Berkeley and other universities get serious about arresting and prosecuting disruptors, as well as expelling students who participate. I’m not holding my breath.

October 7 is just around the corner. I expect this first anniversary of that atrocity will see significant campus demonstrations and unrest around the country.

It’s interesting to note that since October 7, university presidents and administrators have suddenly discovered the virtues of free speech, and pundits have accused right-leaning critics of the anti-Israel protests of hypocrisy for supposedly abandoning their commitment to freedom of speech. But this story shows the absurdity of the actions of the former and the arguments of the latter: preserving free speech in fact requires punishing violent and disruptive behavior.

Read more at Powerline

More about: Berkeley, Freedom of Speech, Israel on campus, Israeli Judicial Reform

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy