Links - 4th November 2023 (2 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

The Left Refuses to See Jewish Suffering - The Atlantic - "The people on “my side” are supposed to care about human suffering, whether it’s in the detention camps of Xinjiang or in Darfur. They are supposed to recognize the common humanity of people in need, that a child in distress is first a child in distress regardless of country or background. But I quickly saw that many of those on the left who I thought shared these values with me could see what had happened only through established categories of colonized and colonizer, evil Israeli and righteous Palestinian—templates made of concrete. The break was caused by this enormous disconnect. I was in a world of Jewish suffering that they couldn’t see because Jewish suffering simply didn’t fit anywhere for them. The callousness was expressed in so many ways. There were those tweets that did not hide their disregard for Jewish life... the one that described the rampage as a “glorious thing to wake up to.” There was the statement by more than two dozen Harvard student groups asserting, in those first hours in which we saw children and women and old people massacred, that “the Israeli regime” was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” And then there were the less explicit posts that nevertheless made clear through pseudo-intellectual word salads that Israel got what it deserved: “a near-century’s pulverized overtures toward ethnic realization, of groping for a medium of existential latitude—these things culminate in drastic actions in need of no apologia.” I hate to extrapolate from social media—it is a place that twists every utterance into a performance for others. But I also felt this callousness in the real world, in a Times Square celebratory protest promoted by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, at which one speaker talked of supporting Palestinians using “any means necessary” to retake the land “from the river to the sea,” as a number of placards declared. There were silences as well. Institutions that had rushed to condemn the murder of George Floyd or Russia for attacking Ukraine were apparently confounded. I watched my phone to see whether friends would write to find out if my family was okay—and a few did, with genuine and thoughtful concern, but many did not."

Hamas, the Jews, and the Illiberal Left - "For many progressive American Jews, the horror and shock of a massacre of Israeli civilians has been compounded by the response by vocal segments of the far left to either withhold condemnation or cheer the murders outright... They are treating apologias for Hamas as a factually or logically flawed application of left-wing ideals. I believe, to the contrary, that Hamas defenders are applying their own principles correctly. The problem is the principles themselves.   It was around 2014 that this kind of illiberal thinking began exploding in various progressive spaces. In 2015, I wrote a story for this magazine about the rise of the illiberal left within the progressive movement. Progressive critics of my argument, while often willing to mock cancellations, firings, or other discrete manifestations of this new ideology, were skeptical that it was an ideological phenomenon. The most common response was that the shift was just college kids going through a phase.  That blithe dismissal, most commonly expressed in shorthand with references to “college teens” or “Oberlin sophomores,” has aged badly. Illiberal left-wing norms quickly spread to the media, political activism, publishing, and other cultural high ground where progressives have (or had) enough critical mass to impose them... Liberals believe political rights are universal. Basic principles like democracy, free speech, and human rights apply equally to all people, without regard to the content of their political values... A liberal would abhor the use of political violence or repression, however evil the targets.  A variety of left-wing alternatives respond that liberalism ignores power differentials by class, race, or gender. The illiberal left believes treating everybody equally, when the power is so unequal, merely serves to maintain existing structures of power. It follows from their critique that the legitimacy of a tactic can only be assessed with reference to whether it is being used by the oppressor or the oppressed. Is it okay for, say, a mob of protesters to shout down a lecture? Liberals would say no. Illiberal leftists would need to know who was the speaker and who was the mob before they could answer.  “Decolonization” is one of those strands of illiberal leftism. It has a model of the world in which conflicts are analyzed as a struggle pitting settler-colonist-Europeans, who are evil, against native/indigenous/BIPOC people. Like other illiberal leftist theories, the decolonization model does not leave room to judge the morality of any methods... the debate over this illiberalism and the social norms it has spawned — demands for deference in the name of allyship, describing opposing ideas as a form of harm, and so on — has tracked an older debate within the left over communism. Communism provided real-world evidence of how an ideology that denies political rights to anybody deemed to be the oppressor laid the theoretical groundwork for repression and murder... The left-wing historian Gabriel Winant has a column in Dissent urging progressives not to mourn dead Israeli civilians because that sentiment will be used to advance the Zionist project. Winant sounds eerily like an old communist fellow traveler explaining that the murders of the kulaks or the Hungarian nationalists are the necessary price of defending the revolution. “The impulse, repeatedly called ‘humane’ over the past week, to find peace by acknowledging equally the losses on all sides rests on a fantasy that mourning can be depoliticized,” he argues, calling such soft-minded sentiment “a new Red Scare.” Making the perfect omelette always requires some broken eggs in the form of innocent people who made the historical error of belonging to, or perhaps being born into, an enemy class.  But more than three decades have passed since the Soviet Union existed or China’s government was recognizably Marxist. And so the liberal warning about the threat of left-wing illiberalism seemed abstract and bloodless.  On October 7, it suddenly became bloody and concrete. It didn’t happen here, of course. The shock of it was that many leftists revealed just how far they would be willing to follow their principles. “People have repeated over and over again over the last few days that you ‘cannot tell Palestinians how to resist,’” notes (without contradicting the sentiment) Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of the left-wing Jewish Currents.   Concepts like this, treating the self-appointed representative of any oppressed group as beyond criticism, are banal on the left. Yet for some progressive Jews, it is shocking to see it extended to the slaughter of babies, even though that is its logical endpoint. The radical rhetoric of decolonization, with its glaring absence of any limiting principles, was not just a rhetorical cover to bully some hapless school administrator into changing the curriculum. Phrases like “by any means necessary” were not just figures of speech. Any means included any means, very much including murder.   Both Julia Ioffe and Eric Levitz have pointed out that decolonization logic ignores the fact that half of Israel’s Jewish population does not have European origins and came to Israel after suffering the same ethnic cleansing as the Palestinians. This is correct. But what if it weren’t? If every Israeli Jew descended from Ashkenazi stock, would it be okay to shoot their babies?... What the far left revealed about its disposition toward Jews is not just a warning for the Jews but a warning for all progressives who care about democracy and humanity.  The pro-Hamas left is not merely indicating an indifference toward Jews. It is revealing the illiberal left’s inherent cruelty, repression, and inhumanity."
Modern liberals long ago left classical liberalism behind
Of course, the author has to bash the right

US among 14 countries to vote against UN resolution on Israel-Hamas ‘truce’ - "The resolution calls for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in Gaza.  According to the U.N. it also demands a “continuous, sufficient and unhindered” provision of life-saving supplies to the people stuck inside Gaza.  The resolution also condemns all violence against Palestinian and Israeli civilians.  Notably, the resolution does not specifically condemn the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas, or mention Hamas at all. There were several amendments that asked for Israel and Hamas to be named in the resolution that failed to get enough support."

Man accused of invading Jewish home yells ‘free Palestine’ and ‘brown people matter’ during arrest - "a man tried to break into a home in Los Angeles' Studio City neighborhood. While being arrested, he yelled "Free Palestine"...    One woman who lived at the home told police that they had been locked in a room with four children while the man threatened them."

Amy Alkon on X - "Quotes from the video to clear things up for deluded westerners:
“Israel has never attacked Gaza unprovoked.”
“500,000 Gazans cross to Israel every single day to work.”
“Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, Israel does not owe shit to Gaza. But ‘The electricity! The water!’ “Why isn’t Hamas providing those things to Gaza? Where (are) all the billions of dollars they are being sent constantly?”
We don’t *have* to let Gazans come and work here (in Israel). We don’t *have* to give them food, electricity, and water. We don't *have* to warn them to go out of their houses when we attack Hamas targets. We don’t *have* to do anything, and somehow we are held to the standard that we do?”
“Hamas kills their political opponents.”
All you westerners standing with the terrorists, bleating “free Palestine!” because you’ve lapped up the propaganda and the buzzwords (and it’s so convenient to claim to have an excuse to hate Jews). Gaza needs to be free, yes -- of Hamas. And as she points out, Israel extends itself in ways no other country would -- after the Palestinian kleptocrat leadership turned down land for peace deals FIVE times. Let me assure you: The morality you want your life to depend on is that of Israel, not Hamas. Hamas terrorists will slit your throat faster than you can protest that you marched to cheer dead Israeli babies on your college campus."

Jay Engelmayer on X - "🚨🚨WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT   Palestinians parading around the body of a young Israeli woman.  These are the people world leaders want Israel to make peace with.  These are the people @JoeBiden  and the @un  say are good people who deserve every consideration.  Pray for Israel."
Wellington on X - "Notice how they had to strip her clothes off. What kind of people would do that?"

Videos of Hamas attack suggest a chilling evolution of jihadist tactics - "Hamas appears to have combined the tactics of Hezbollah, the Islamic State, and the Taliban by mounting a large-scale attack that included an estimated 2,000 fighters, rocket salvos, mass hostage-taking, rape, beheadings and livestreaming.  Hezbollah has amassed a vast arsenal of rockets that it has used against Israeli forces. The Taliban carried out offensives involving thousands of fighters, particularly in the year before regaining power. And ISIS engaged in hostage-taking and posted gruesome videos online.  Hamas' Oct. 7th attack, the worst terrorist attack in the country’s 75 year history, employed all of those tactics and killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians. Under international law, the intentional targeting of civilians is a war crime... Edelstein and other officials said that some of the Hamas members had been trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran provides millions of dollars to Hamas annually, according to the U.S. State Department, and has long supported Hezbollah and other proxies across the region.  Iran has expressed support for the Hamas attack but denied direct involvement. Israeli Consul General Aviv Ezra said that was false. “Their strategic goal is quite clear,” he said. “Their goal is to surround Israel with terror armies.” Throughout the roughly 45 minutes of footage, the attackers cheered as they killed unarmed people. Hamas members shot dead civilians in their living rooms, lit houses on fire, and hurled a grenade at a father trying to protect his three children, killing the father and one child, and partially blinding another. After civilians were shot dead in the car, Hamas militants pulled their limp bodies from the vehicle, got inside and drove away. The footage showed Hamas members engaged in the type of butchery depicted in ISIS videos. In one scene, a Hamas member asks another fighter to film him as he fires rounds into the head of an Israeli civilian who appears to already be dead. In another, a group of Hamas terrorits argue over who gets to cut off the head of a Thai man who was working in Israel. One of them then struggles to chop off his head with a hoe.  The footage includes photographs of two babies that had been shot in the head and two infants who appear to have been burnt to a char... a Hamas fighter calls his parents in Gaza and brags, shouting, “Mom, I killed more than 10 Jews with my own hands,” he said. “Please be proud of me, dad.”   After his parents praise him, the terrorist repeatedly urges his family to watch his WhatsApp feed to see what he has done. When his mother urges him to come back to Gaza, the young man replies “victory or martyrdom.”"

Kill, behead, rape: Interrogated Hamas members detail atrocities against civilians - "Israeli security agencies published video footage Monday from the apparent interrogations of seven Hamas terrorists who were captured following the Palestinian terror group’s October 7 onslaught, in which they admitted they had been ordered to carry out atrocities against Israeli civilians.  In one video released by the Israel Defense Forces, a person whose face is blurred said that gunmen were given instructions to kill everyone they saw, including beheading victims and cutting off their legs.  “The plan was to go from home to home, from room to room, to throw grenades and kill everyone, including women and children,” he said. “Hamas ordered us to crush their heads and cut them off, [and] to cut their legs.”  He also said they were given permission to rape the corpse of a girl... “In Gaza, those who bring hostages get a grant — an apartment and $10,000,” said one.  One of the men was seen saying Hamas’s orders were to kill young men and to “kidnap the elderly, women and children.”... the government screened for 200 members of the foreign press some 43 minutes of harrowing scenes of murder, torture and decapitation from the onslaught on southern Israel, including raw videos from the terrorists’ bodycams.  The government said it had decided to show journalists part of its collected documentation in order to dispel what a spokesperson characterized as “a Holocaust-denial-like phenomenon happening in real-time,” as doubts have been raised around the world about some of the most horrific of Hamas’s atrocities."

Feminists Are Consenting to Hamas' Rape Culture - "They particularly relished targeting women—slaughtering them, raping them, cutting babies out of pregnant women’s wombs, torturing mothers and grandmothers in front of their families—and, many fear, sexually enslaving some of the hostages. The world witnessed these perversions because the villains proudly filmed them, then inspired Palestinians and pro-Palestinian progressives to spread them across social media. This secondary, digital, GoPro assault on the victims’ dignity made this orgy of misogyny one of the bloodiest and most publicized attacks on women in history.  Nevertheless, more than three weeks later, the feminist community remains silent. In May 2021, within days of Israel counterattacking in self-defense against yet another Hamas bombardment, over 120 gender studies departments denounced the Jewish state. Declaring that “justice is indivisible,” they proclaimed that our work is “committed to an inclusive feminist vision,” as per the National Women’s Studies Association’s 2015 Solidarity Statement, “that contests violations of civil rights and international human rights law.” The call was so popular, the Palestinian Feminist Collective asked for patience. “Please note, due to the overwhelming response we are only uploading names twice a day. Please be patient as we are stretched to capacity.” Now, despite seeing Hamas’ rape cult, not one gender studies department has defended even one victimized woman. Feminists have long taught us to believe the accuser and not blame the victim. For years, progressives insisted, in academic papers, on T-shirts, even on coffee mugs, that when fighting oppression, “silence is consent,” or even that “silence is violence.” On Oct. 7, the violated women shouted, shrieked, cried, begged, rape after rape, cut after cut, fighting off these assaults with their voices and their bare hands as best each could. Some hostages may still be struggling. By contrast, violating every feminist principle I’ve ever read and respected, today’s feminist movement is violently, silently, consenting to this mass crime against women and against the victims from three-dozen different countries. Some even doubt the testimonials—and the staggering, bloody, heartbreaking evidence of stripped women paraded through Gaza’s streets. Robbing someone of their story is a secondary offense—but nevertheless inexcusable. If justice is indivisible, these women deserve justice—and empathy too—whether or not you like Israel or abhor it and its policies. If rape culture is never OK, all civilized people should repudiate so many Palestinians’ and progressives’ delight in spreading these videos and cheering these crimes. In their silence, most leading feminists became complicit, aiding and abetting this mass attempt to dehumanize women just because they’re Jews—or happened to be on the Gaza border that day... Indeed, these crimes echoed the mass murders and sexual assaults the Nazis perpetrated during the Holocaust, that Arabs perpetrated on their Jewish neighbors during the Hebron Massacre of 1929, that Cossacks perpetrated on so many Jews during pogroms—and so many other Jew-haters perpetrated on Jewish women, no matter how young or old over millennia... After three weeks of hearing how this sadistic saturnalia “exhilarated” too many progressives, those justifiably appalled by these enablers of evil are now being told the worst abuses never happened. Once again, the hypocrisy is stunning. Feminists teach that denying sexual assault intensifies the trauma, erasing the victim’s personhood yet again. Nevertheless, some feminists are questioning the stories—perhaps because they don’t want to question their blind support for the Palestinian cause. They want to deny the vile photos and videos, the reports from IDF officials, pathologists and volunteers at the overworked morgues, or testimonies from captured Hamas criminals describing “having sex with dead bodies, meaning the body of a dead young woman,” because the goal was “to dirty them, to rape them.”  The horrors of Oct. 7 were so unnerving that the characteristic gallows humor of the Israelis has been muted. The first joke I heard, however, is tragically on point: If gaslighting is denying you said what you said …. Gaza-lighting is denying you did what you did—after broadcasting it broadly to the world... That few feminists, especially gender studies professors, have denounced this familiar yet deplorable evil exposes a darkness deep in their soul. It is part of a broader scandal in higher education some are now, belatedly, starting to recognize. Call it fruits from the poisoned Ivies. For years, America’s most elite universities have been cultivating a generation of grievance junkies—dividing the world into “the oppressed,” who are forever blameless, and “the oppressors,” who are forever guilty. Those deemed “oppressors” are often accused of enjoying “privilege,” although those grade-grubbing radicals dining out on their parents’ Black AmEx card as they pay $70,000 university bills, somehow don’t count themselves as “privileged” either... feminism has long had a Jewish problem. From Betty Friedan to Bella Abzug, Jewish women were among the most visible forces in American feminism—even as feminists often rendered invisible their particular challenges as Jewish women facing sexism and antisemitism.  In June 1982, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of Ms. magazine, interviewed 80 Jewish feminists about their experience as Jews in the movement. Her bombshell “Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement,” anticipated today’s hypocrisy... why, she asked, would anyone expect Israel “to commit suicide for the sake of Palestinian liberation?”"
Power relations means never having to say you're sorry
Liberals only care about Jews when they can use that to shit on white people

Israeli officer says he found baby beheaded in Hamas attack - "Colonel Golan Vach, head of the military search and rescue service, told AFP he saw the body of a mother protecting a baby while searching debris at the Beeri kibbutz three days after the attacks.  "When I pulled it over I saw a decapitated baby. I took it up with my hands and I carried it, and I put it in the body bag. I personally did it," he said while on a media tour of another kibbutz organised by the military."

UC Davis condemns professor threatening 'zionist journalists' on X - Los Angeles Times - "The chancellor of UC Davis condemned a controversial online post apparently made by a faculty member, which threatened “zionist journalists” in the days after the attacks in Israel by Hamas.  The post was made Oct. 10 by Jemma Decristo, an assistant professor of American studies and an undergraduate faculty advisor... Decristo posted under her account @jemmaisOKeh that “zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation” were a group that was easily accessible to the public.  She said in the post that “they have houses w adddresses, kids in school,” and “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” The post ends with a knife emoji, followed by a hatchet emoji and three drops of blood emojis... Her faculty page, which has been temporarily removed from public view, said she received her PhD in the history of consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz. Her work in the humanities focuses on music, race and gender, particularly regarding Black musical traditions and artists."
Weird. We're told that only fascists threaten the media

Israel-Hamas war: Cafe Landwer protest in Toronto - "Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow condemned a protest outside of a Jewish-owned business in Toronto over the weekend, alongside public officials who called it an “appalling” and “reprehensible” act of antisemitism.  Videos posted online Saturday show hundreds of protesters waving Palestinian flags outside of Cafe Landwer at University Avenue and Adelaide Street while chanting “boycott.”...   One of the videos posted to Instagram was paired with the caption “zionist cafe boycott” and showed one participant waving a flag in the window of the restaurant as patrons sit at a booth eating a meal.  “I urge everyone in our city, through all the pain and anger so many are feeling right now, not to lose sight of our common humanity,” Chow said, pointing to the city’s recent increase in hate incidents. Since the war began with Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the daily average of hate-related police calls in Toronto has increased by 132 per cent, Toronto's police chief said last week...   The restaurant targeted, Cafe Landwer, was “singled-out” for the fact that it is Jewish-owned, MP Kevin Vuong told CP24."

Why Jewish lives don’t matter to BLM - "Following Hamas’s pogrom of Jewish people in Israel on 7 October, numerous Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists made clear where their sympathies lie. Within days, BLM’s chapter in Chicago posted a graphic that celebrated the slaughter. It showed a paraglider of the kind used by Hamas terrorists to enter Israel from Gaza and murder over 200 young people at a music festival. Below the picture, the caption read: ‘I stand with Palestine.’  After the tweet was viewed millions of times, BLM Chicago deleted it and gave a semi-apology. ‘Yesterday we sent out [a post] that we aren’t proud of’, it said, before re-asserting: ‘We stand with Palestine and the people who will do what they must to live free.’ That vague ‘will do what they must’ presumably does not rule out violence.  Even after the climbdown over the paraglider post, BLM activists in Chicago disrupted a city-council meeting as councillors discussed a resolution to stand in solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attack. The crowd rained down boos and chants, forcing mayor Brandon Johnson to clear the room. The resolution eventually passed, but only after BLM-allied council members left the meeting in protest.  Pro-Hamas statements from BLM were not limited to Chicago. Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a splinter group that represents about two dozen BLM chapters, rationalised Hamas’s terror as a ‘desperate act of self-defence’. BLM at School, an offshoot of BLM that organises teachers in schools, blamed the Israelis for Hamas’s atrocities. The ‘unfolding loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives is the direct result of decades of Israeli settler-colonialism, land dispossession, occupation, blockade, apartheid and attempted genocide of millions of Palestinians’, it said.  This outright support for Hamas, and the blaming of Israeli victims for Hamas’s butchery, came as a surprise to some liberals. They had viewed BLM as a worthy cause and saw themselves as allies of the movement. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in 2020, BLM skyrocketed in prominence and gained new-found respectability among the great and good... But now, witnessing BLM’s unholy alliance with Hamas, many establishment liberals are waking up to what BLM really thinks. Jewish organisations, in particular, feel betrayed after years of giving support to BLM...   As it happens, if these establishment allies of BLM had happened to take a few minutes to examine its history and political positions before sending millions of dollars to its bank accounts, they might not have been so surprised that it rushed to the defence of Hamas. In 2015, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors led a mission to Israel, which she termed an ‘apartheid state’. That same year, while speaking on a panel at Harvard Law School, she adopted eliminationist rhetoric, calling ‘to end the imperialist project called Israel’. Like most of the pseudo-progressive left, BLM’s long-standing support for Palestine has included the belief that Hamas reflects the interests of the Palestinian people, and its violence must therefore be excused...  certainly most black Americans do not see their interests as bound up with Palestinians living thousands of miles away in the Middle East, and especially not with a terror group like Hamas.  Indeed, BLM’s endorsement of Hamas shows how it is not an organic outgrowth of the experiences of the black masses in the US. Instead, BLM is simply another organ of the identitarian left. It reflects the outlook of activists, academics and other upper-middle-class professionals, not ordinary black people. BLM may claim to speak on behalf of black Americans, but it pushes policies – like defunding the police – that hurt middle-class and poorer black people disproportionately. BLM activists are more likely to be found on college campuses – where they rub shoulders with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to delegitimise and isolate Israel – than in black neighbourhoods... despite BLM being a disparate movement, its activists share a common language. BLMers of different stripes will unite in their oft-stated aim of ‘decolonising’ the US and other countries. This is a jargon that you will not hear among ordinary black Americans. Up to now, ‘decolonisation’ could have been dismissed as over-the-top rhetoric, an embellishment. It has often meant little more than a demand for changes to reading lists at universities or schools. But, following the Hamas attacks, that term should be taken as a warning of something more ominous. As BLM at School wrote 10 days after Hamas’s barbaric violence, ‘Palestinians are reminding us that decolonisation is not a metaphor or abstraction, but requires real, daily struggle’. By this logic, the ‘decolonisation’ of the US would justify similar violence as well.   Essentially, BLMers have not endorsed Hamas’s attacks because of any real alignment between the struggles of black Americans and Palestinians or Hamas, nor of anything related to ‘black lives’ at all. No, they have excused Hamas and flirted with anti-Semitism because the BLM ideology embraces the mind-numbing oppressor / oppressed categories that all identitarian left organisations today deploy. Under the twisted logic of this mindset, Jews are the oppressors who are always to blame, while Hamas represent the oppressed who can do no wrong. It leads to a sick morality where Hamas’s killings, torturing and kidnapping of babies and grandmothers come to be seen as acceptable – as blows for the oppressed against the oppressors. It is good that BLM is finally being exposed for the morally degenerate movement it has become. But it still has much influence in the US and internationally, and can still do much harm. Not least when BLM activists serve as useful idiots for Hamas. Indeed, Hamas welcomes comparisons with BLM. In a 2021 interview, Yahya Sinwar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, made an explicit link, arguing that ‘the same type of racism that killed George Floyd is being used by [Israel] against the Palestinians’."
Addendum: BLM Chicago Flyer

'Never Again' has rarely rung so hollow - "Watching footage of a lynch mob storming an airport in Dagestan in the Russian Federation, in search of Jewish passengers disembarking a flight from Tel Aviv, I had a terrible sense of foreboding. We have seen this too many times before. A blood-thirsty rabble once again hunting for Jews to kill. If those involved had had their way, Makhachkala airport would have been the site of another pogrom.  Suddenly it feels as if a very dark history has returned with a vengeance. One video from Makhachkala airport featured angry civilians surrounding one of the Tel Aviv flight’s passengers. It could have come straight from a 1930s newsreel. The passenger protests that he is Uzbek and not Jewish. But the mob refuses to let go of its prey. Those harassing him insist on looking at his passport and his telephone. At this point, he is literally fighting for his life. The desire of these people to kill more Jews is palpable.   It is not an overstatement to say Dagestan is no longer safe for Jewish people. In Nalchik, another Dagestani city, a planned Jewish centre was set on fire on Sunday. And in Khasavyurt, a mob besieged a hotel and searched rooms for Jews. A former chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt, tweeted last night that, ‘We are receiving reports from four different cities in Dagestan… of mobs demanding to kill the Jews’...   The Russian government’s pro-Hamas stance will obviously not have helped. But Moscow’s craven position is not the cause of this eruption of anti-Jewish hatred. The Kremlin is, in part, only trying to appease the already existing loathing of Israel among Russia’s Muslim populations.  Indeed, hatred of Israel plays a key, unifying role within the Muslim world. Since the decline of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism in the 1970s, opposition to Israel has become the one cause that different Muslim sects and nations could agree on. This anti-Israeli consensus had appeared to be unravelling recently, with Gulf states and Saudi Arabia seeking a modus vivendi in Israel. The outbreak of the war on 7 October – which was likely encouraged by Iran – has put paid to any rapprochement between Israel and the Muslim world, at least for now. The current wave of anti-Israeli sentiment sweeping the Muslim world is being mirrored in Western societies."

Soy Sauce

I asked about the differences between Lee Kum Kee soy sauces, and got lots of answers:

"Chinese soy sauce is made of 100% soy. Japanese soy is made of a mixture of soy and wheat. Light soy sauce is for flavouring your rice, or adding to your already prepared food. Dark soy sauce thicker and a bit sweet, mainly for adding color... the premium stuff is often labelled as such because it's the first batch harvested after the fermentation process . They kinda treat it like whiskey. Each subsequent harvest lowers the "quality" and cannot be labelled premium. Kum Chun is made with wheat." (I looked at the ingredients of the "premium" version and it has wheat flour, so)

"A lot of people seem to not know this, but light soy sauce actually tastes saltier than dark soy sauce due to the sugar and stronger soy flavour masking the salt in dark soy sauce. So don't let the colour and viscosity fool you when thinking of what soy sauce to use."

"“Premium” soy sauce is LKK’s original. “Kum Chun” is their cheaper “value” option, I suspect to compete with the more affordable (mainland) Chinese brands. Lower soybean content (Premium is about 17% as per their website). Theoretically there would be a difference in taste - less richness/depth, more straight saltiness or even MSG umami. Whether it makes a difference depends on your palate and what you’re using it for.
There are also a few cheaper grades you can sometimes see in Asian supermarkets - these are usually in Chinese packaging and are mainly tailored to HK/PRC local markets and foodservice."

"Basically:
Dark soy = thicker, sweeter, has added molasses, has more sodium & sugar. Used for braises and marinades.
Regular or light soy = thinner, lighter colour. Good for everyday use.
Premium = “first press” (the virgin olive oil equivalent of soy sauce), more complex flavours than light. Think of it as Light+ I suppose?
I think Kum chun is the same as dark soy...
superior is a kind of light soy. Looks like it has less ingredients and contains high fructose corn syrup + sweetener instead of sugar."

"At least within Chinese brands, any soy sauce is usually a type of “light soy sauce” (生抽) and can be used in most cooking applications interchangeably. Different variations (premium, kum chun) won’t really change ur dish too too much unless u are somehow using huge quantities. Just don’t use “dark soy sauce” (老抽) as a substitute where any recipe says just “soy sauce” or “light soy sauce.” Dark soy sauce has a very strong flavor and is usually used to mainly add color. A lot of Chinese ppl will also use Japanese soy sauce as their go-to soy sauce/“light soy sauce,” since Japanese soy sauce tends not to have any characteristics that will clash with dishes across many cuisines. U can also use tamari as someone else mentioned, but it is noticeably richer and darker in color (though will not destroy a dish like dark soy sauce would)."

"Your normal soy sauce is medium-dark so it’ll be slightly sweeter with a more mirin-like flavor. It’s not to be mistaken with light soy sauce AKA soup soy sauce"

Links - 4th November 2023 (1 - Working from Home)

The Next Crisis Will Start With Empty Office Buildings - The Atlantic - "During the first three months of 2023, U.S. office vacancy topped 20 percent for the first time in decades. In San Francisco, Dallas, and Houston, vacancy rates are as high as 25 percent. These figures understate the severity of the crisis because they only cover spaces that are no longer leased. Most office leases were signed before the pandemic and have yet to come up for renewal. Actual office use points to a further decrease in demand. Attendance in the 10 largest business districts is still below 50 percent of its pre-COVID level, as white-collar employees spend an estimated 28 percent of their workdays at home... Municipal governments have even more to worry about. Property taxes underpin city budgets. In New York City, such taxes generate approximately 40 percent of revenue. Commercial property—mostly offices—contributes about 40 percent of these taxes, or 16 percent of the city’s total tax revenue. In San Francisco, property taxes contribute a lower share, but offices and retail appear to be in an even worse state. Empty offices also contribute to lower retail sales and public-transport usage. In New York City, weekday subway trips are 65 percent of their 2019 level—though they’re trending up—and public-transport revenue has declined by $2.4 billion. Meanwhile, more than 40,000 retail-sector jobs lost since 2019 have yet to return. A recent study by an NYU professor named Arpit Gupta and others estimate a 6.5 percent “fiscal hole” in the city’s budget due to declining office and retail valuations. Such a hole “would need to be plugged by raising tax rates or cutting government spending.”  Many cities face a difficult choice. If they cut certain services, they could become less attractive and trigger a possible “urban doom loop” that pushes even more people away, hurts revenue, and perpetuates a cycle of decline. If they raise taxes, they could alienate wealthy residents, who are now more mobile than ever. Residents making $200,000 or more contributed 71 percent of New York State’s income taxes in 2019. Losing wealthy residents to low-tax states such as Florida and Texas is already taking a toll on New York and California. The income-tax base of both states has shrunk by tens of billions since the pandemic began. Finally, turmoil in office markets threatens retirement systems and the portfolios of individual people... Landlords like to point out that “New York always comes back.” But some cities—like Detroit or Pittsburgh—never recovered from the previous waves of technological change. And even in New York, a comeback may take decades. In the ’90s, the internet helped cities come back. As the economy became more dependent on innovation and creativity, many of the largest and densest downtowns boomed. In 2007, the world’s preeminent urban economist, Ed Glaeser, called it a “central paradox of our time” that cities remain “remarkably vital despite ever easier movement of goods and knowledge across space.” Economists have been busy explaining this paradox up until the current crisis. As the theory goes, companies require the rapid exchange of ideas and specialized division of labor that large cities provide. In addition, companies want access to the largest possible talent pool, and top talent likes to live in large cities because of lifestyle considerations.  The consensus among economists was that as technology and media expanded, economic activity would consolidate within a select few superstar cities. But even before COVID, the theory started to crack as some of the top-performing cities saw population decreases, tech giants started distributing their offices across smaller cities, and the office market was propped up by WeWork’s irrational, venture-capital-funded expansion...  Many old buildings will have to be converted to other uses or demolished. Steve Paynter, a principal at the design firm Gensler, has been evaluating hundreds of office buildings across North America and estimates that as many as 30 percent of them could be fit for residential conversion. Other buildings could accommodate new uses, including health care, education, light logistics, and even data centers. To facilitate such conversions, cities must loosen existing zoning laws, streamline planning procedures, and provide tax abatements and other incentives. In the 1990s and early 2000s, New York City relied on this policy mix to convert 59 office buildings in lower Manhattan to more than 12,000 apartments."

US office prices headed for 'severe crash,' investors say - "The commercial real estate market is headed for a severe collapse due in large part to sky-high interest rates and declining property values, according to a survey of investors.  Around two-thirds of those who responded to a Bloomberg News survey said they believe that the commercial real estate market will recover only after a crash... vacancy rates are at 30-year highs in many American cities.  In New York City, the vacancy rate was 22.2% in Q1 of 2023."

Nearly one-third of Toronto office buildings ‘obsolete,’ Dream CEO says - The Globe and Mail - "“Probably 30 per cent of the space in downtown Toronto requires a ton of money, a lot of investment and it’s questionable if you put the investment in that the building will be worth enough to justify it,” he said. “That’s what I mean by obsolete – when you put a lot of money in but you’re not actually going to increase the value.”... In downtown Toronto, the occupancy rate was 88 per cent midyear versus 98 per cent in June, 2019, when tech companies and other businesses were desperate for space in the city... The rise in remote work has hurt office markets throughout Canada and the United States. The share of employees in Toronto’s financial core rebounded to about half of prepandemic occupancy levels by the spring, but has been stuck at those levels since... Commercial real estate brokerages have floated the possibility of turning some of the unwanted space into housing units. But it’s not feasible to turn many older buildings into condos given the lack of proper plumbing and other infrastructure for individual housing units.  “Maybe one out of 20 buildings makes sense as a conversion,” he said, adding that the others should be torn down and new residential buildings should be built."

Grindr loses nearly half its staff to strict return-to-work rule - Los Angeles Times - "Grindr has lost about 45% of its staff as it enforces a strict return-to-office policy that was introduced after a majority of employees announced a plan to unionize... Chief Executive George Arison told investors at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference in San Francisco this week that more staff attrition is expected as a result of the mandate, which will be financially advantageous in the near term... Amazon.com Chief Executive Andy Jassy has amped up his rhetoric, telling staff members who refuse to comply with the company’s mandate for in-office work three days a week that “it’s probably not going to work out for you,” according to an Insider report. AT&T told 60,000 managers that they must report to work in person at one of nine locations, which some employees view as a move to reduce staff.  Return-to-office mandates hurt employee engagement and staffers’ ability to do their best work, according to research from real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield"

Study: Adding 20 Minutes to Your Commute Makes You as Miserable as Getting a 19 Percent Pay Cut - "In England, the average daily commute time has risen from 48 minutes to 60 minutes in the past 20 years and one in seven commuters spends at least two hours on their daily round-trip commute. The average commute time in the US is less, at around 50 minutes round-trip... Dr. Chatterjee's research underscores multiple studies that suggest commuting can be more stressful than actually working, and that the longer your commute, the less satisfied you may be with your job and with life in general"

Author Malcolm Gladwell slams working from home - "Author Malcolm Gladwell thinks that remote work is hurting society and that a recession will likely drive employees who are “sitting in their pajamas” back into the office.  The bestselling author of “Blink” and “The Tipping Point” grew emotional and shed tears as he told the “Diary of a CEO” podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett that people need to come into the office in order to regain a “sense of belonging” and to feel part of something larger than themselves.  “It’s very hard to feel necessary when you’re physically disconnected”"

Finance firms' return-to-office crackdown could backfire - study - "Of 700 financial executives surveyed by Deloitte, 66% who worked remotely part time said they would likely quit if they were ordered to return to the office five days a week... Even among the large Wall Street banks, views have differed. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been prominent advocates of in-office working for learning, innovation and culture. By contrast, Citigroup, UBS and Bank of New York Mellon have embraced more flexibility as a way to attract and retain talent... Poll results showed almost half of women in senior leadership roles were likely to leave their current employer over the next 12 months."

Workers are creating a ‘dead zone’ between 4-6 p.m. to fit in COVID-era habits like school runs and gym sessions - "It's easy to see why workers are keen to keep up the COVID-era habit, which can promote work-life balance. Those with families are using that time to do the school pick-up, run errands and have dinner on the table in less of a hurry. Meanwhile, others are finding time for leisure before work depletes them of their energy and capacity for fun—by 4 p.m. on weekdays, golf courses are packed, according to a Stanford University study. Plus employees aren’t dodging work to kick their feet up for the rest of the day. They’re logging back in on their laptops after hours to finish their work. The result is a "triple-peak" day, in which workers’ keyboard activity spikes in the morning and afternoon, then a third time around 10 p.m. Microsoft researchers who coined the phenomenon predict the pattern is here to stay... While many workers will experience the benefits of flexible hours, there are downsides too—namely that the boundaries between “office hours” and everything else has become thinner. “The third peak should be an available option for people who need it, but the challenge moving forward is, ‘How can we make sure people are not working 24/7?’” Shamsi Iqbal, principal researcher on productivity and intelligence at Microsoft Research said... Plus, for those working with or managing people who work all hours, the workday can feel never-ending... “Scheduling meetings has become difficult, and I’ve learned: Do it in the morning and never on Friday,” Maria Banach, a pharmaceutical operations director in Oregon told the WSJ."

A baby boomer who quit his 6-figure job rather than return to the office says managers are threatened by remote work and just want people back so they can see them working - "Dennis C. would rather retire than return to the office full time — and that's exactly what he did... Some remote workers are living like college kids again, using their afternoons for leisure activities or errands, and then picking work back up later in the day.  "The more choice we have, the more autonomy we have, I think, the happier we are"... in April 2021, Dennis was called back to the office. The company wanted him to come in for three days a week. Dennis, who was technically eligible to retire and had already been looking for new roles, said it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  "When they said that I was going to have to come back, I sent them an email saying I'm retiring," he said.    Dennis had already secured a job offer elsewhere as a defense contractor. With the new role, he'd be taking a slight pay cut, bringing his salary from six figures to a little less. But since he receives new monthly retirement benefits from his old federal job, he's still technically bringing in more than he was before.  His new role is also fully remote, a must-have for him. He said that it's been, in a word, "fantastic." Dennis isn't alone. Felicia, an administrator in Arizona, previously told Insider that she too was leaving behind a six-figure salary over a forced return to the office. Her bosses were suffering from productivity paranoia and could not believe that people working from home were actually working.  Dennis said that he thinks the only people who fully fail at remote work are those who went to meetings in person, walked around with a piece of paper, and looked busy — but weren't actually getting much done. But self-starters and motivated people with goals can excel with remote work. But remote work also calls into question the purpose of a boss, he said. A boss's model, whether they voice it aloud, is to make sure their employees get work done... Even as remote work has fallen off slightly in the near term — the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently found that nearly 73% surveyed of companies offered little to no telework in September, compared to 60% surveyed in 2021 — Dennis still thinks it will slowly take over, especially as office leases expire."

Why we will miss the office if it dies - "What hurt so unexpectedly was not leaving a profession and a set of colleagues. It was leaving a physical place of work with its familiar habits and familiar doorman — it was leaving an office... The office was a mainstay of my life. It not only provided me with a place of work and material for articles, but gave me routine, structure, amusement, purpose, many friends and a refuge in times of trouble.  It was where I went to pass my days. The office was my rock... My love for offices may be partly because I was introduced to them in the 1980s, at the end of the golden age — pre-technology, pre-uniformity, pre-health and safety.  It was a time of cast-iron typewriters, smoking at your desk, heavy drinking at lunchtime, canteens selling spotted dick, tea ladies and cake trolleys.  But what I really remember are characters... Modern offices, by contrast, are usually dull: Quiet, boozeless and impersonal with their ergonomic chairs, glass-walled meeting rooms and half the people working from home. But, even so, we need the office as much as ever.  The most important thing — which should make the office less an employer’s white elephant than its biggest bargain — is that it gives work its meaning.  Most of what passes for work in offices is pretty meaningless, and the best way to kid yourself it matters is to do it alongside other people intent on doing the same.  Even in interesting jobs like journalism, meaning comes largely from physical proximity to your colleagues. After six weeks of writing in her own bedroom, one friend reports: “I’m churning out the same old articles as before, only now I no longer give a crap”.  Without an office, without a body of people beavering away at the same place and time, it is hard to know how a company could ever create any sort of culture or any fellow feeling — let alone anything resembling loyalty.  The office helps keep us sane.  First, it imposes routine, without which most of us fall to pieces. The uptight schedule of most offices forces even the least organised person to establish habits.  Even better, it creates a barrier between work and home. On arrival we escape the chaos (or monotony) of our hearths; better still, we escape from our usual selves.  One of the beauties of the office is its artificiality — it demands a different way of behaving, a different wardrobe and even a different language.  Having two selves with two different outfits and two ways of being is infinitely preferable to having just one: When you get tired of your work self, return to your home self.  Offices are also the funniest places in the world. The flipside of the idiocy of management is the hilarity and cynicism of workers... When cynicism failed, there were always pranks. I remember being called one morning by an incandescent CEO about a critical article I’d just written on his company.  I prevaricated, oblivious to the fact that the caller was not the CEO but a colleague ringing from the other side of our office — much to the amusement of everyone else.  In time, I forgave him. In fact, I came to see it as so funny that I married him.  This was yet another function of the office: It was highly likely to furnish you with a spouse. People who had failed to find partners at university or through friends generally picked one up at work.  It was all so easy: You would go out for a drink at the end of the day and then one thing would lead to another.  The fact that the decline of the office and the rise of online dating have gone hand-in-hand isn’t particularly surprising.  Short of marriage, offices from the beginning of time have been great places for lust... In 21st-century offices, where meddling is not only discouraged but illegal, invisible lusting is probably as big as ever.  It gives interest to an otherwise dull day.  In addition to providing real husbands, offices provide work husbands too.  I had seven of these in the course of almost four decades and can confirm that the office spouse is one of the best relationships ever invented.  They are the default option for a sandwich at lunch, someone who supports you in all matters, someone to gossip with.  It’s like a real husband, only better because you don’t fight over whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. There was a study done proving that people with office spouses were happier, more loyal and worked harder. Which is no surprise to anyone who’s ever had one.  A final benefit of the office occurred to me in the past six weeks: It is a great leveller. Yes, the boss tends to get the best view, but everyone is in the same office building with the same common spaces... In my old life I was always irritated by the homily “No one ever said on their death bed: I wish I’d spent more time in the office.”  I now understand why that jarred so badly.  To wish for more office time is an entirely reasonable thing to say with your dying breath. I spent over three rich and happy decades in offices.  I fear that my children won’t get that chance."

Quiet quitters are getting quiet fired in silent workplace war - "Managers are agonizing over what an office full of quiet quitters means for productivity, and for some that’s translated into taking on a portion of their employees’ workloads to make up the loss. Four out of 10 managers in Toronto say they’re putting in extra time and effort because staff under the age of 30 are doing less... we’re witnessing a silent war play out between employees and their managers, some of whom are fighting back in their own passive-aggressive way by “quiet firing” the quiet quitters.   Quiet firing subtly freezes out an employee by either avoiding one-on-one conversations, refusing to provide feedback, neglecting to share critical information needed to do a job, passing them over for a promotion or subjecting them to stingy raises — or no raise at all — while co-workers are awarded more. That may sound pretty extreme, but the practice appears to be more common than you’d think. Most workers say they’ve either experienced it or seen it play out in their workplace, says a recent poll by LinkedIn News. Meanwhile, one in three managers in the United States say they’ve actually gone the “quiet firing” route... The effect can be demoralizing for an employee, which is exactly the point. “Eventually, you’ll either feel so incompetent, isolated and unappreciated that you’ll go find a new job, and they never have to deal with a development plan or offer severance”... This “quiet” war could be a direct consequence of working from home. Remote work seems to have broken something fundamental in the employee-employer relationship: good communication. A large swathe of the workforce appears to have forgotten how to speak to one another, and even approaching a co-worker for a quick conversation during in-office days has become frowned upon. There’s another buzzword for that: “desk bombing.” For some, getting unexpectedly greeted by a colleague has become as anxiety-ridden as having to talk to someone by phone. Meanwhile, managers say remote and hybrid work has made it very easy for employees to fly under the radar, and working from home is a “breeding ground” for quiet quitters, according to Robert Walters Canada. But the recruiter says the solution is simple enough: bring people back into the office more often."

Tech giants who made remote working possible now turn their backs on it - "In 2010, China’s largest travel agency did something unheard of. Trip.com, now worth $23bn (£17bn), launched an experiment to see if employees were as productive working from home as they were in its Shanghai call centre.  Of the 503 volunteers, Trip.com sent home 249 for nine months. By the end of the pilot, productivity had increased by 13.5pc, and time spent answering calls rose 9.2pc. The home workers felt more satisfied with their jobs, and sick days and churn decreased. Impressed with the results, it offered every employee the chance to work from home. Then something even stranger happened: two thirds of employees declined, and half of the home worker volunteers asked to return.   Despite initial satisfaction, “concerns over the loneliness of home working and the lower rates of promotion” began to play on the home workers’ minds...   Technology hardware companies are more open to remote working and are considering closing many of their offices, Wreford says. Their high percentage of sales employees means they are more open to continental hubs where people will go a few times a month for sales briefings.  In contrast, executives at software companies want to bring workers back in because they believe the office is key to their identity, differentiating them from other code warehouses.  Indeed, many of the most recognisable names in tech have invested in lavish offices. Their headquarters in Silicon Valley, London and Dublin stop short of being full-blown shopping centres. Many are crammed with hidden speakeasies, games rooms and hairdressers.  These perks separate Uber, Facebook, Google and Apple from competitors, even if the tedious coding work is often the same. Technology companies know that organic snacks and a free massage stop eyes wandering in a highly competitive technology market.   "Companies like Amazon may believe that since most of the workforce has to live with controlled work situations it would be difficult to strategically manage a hybrid model where some are fixed in place and others have much more freedom," says Gena Cox a human resources consultant and founder of Feels Human. But trust also plays a huge part.  "Some employers simply have not created cultures of trust; leaders who don’t trust employees don’t get trust in return. That limits their perspective; they think control is the only thing that works."... Mercer research found that 83pc of employers found productivity was the same, if not better, as employees worked from home during the pandemic. But it also found that employees were working three hours longer each day, with 41pc reporting increased shoulder and neck pain."

Google and Amazon shun remote working and tell staff to get back in the office - "Google has told staff they must get formal permission to work remotely for more than 14 days a year after the pandemic ends if they want to work internationally, in a sign that major employers are losing faith in the policy...   The move comes after Google's finance chief Ruth Porat said in November that the company had no plans to open the offices sooner than June because “working from home is working”. She added: "There is a productivity lift from not needing to come into the office"."

Opinion: Office-less companies risk alienating Gen Z - The Globe and Mail - "A study released by Microsoft in March bears out the idea that working from home is more difficult for Generation Z (those born since 1997) than for other generations. After surveying 31,000 workers, the company found that although Gen Z workers were slightly more likely to apply for a job with some remote options, rather than one that was completely office-based, as a group they had many misgivings about working from home. Many were more stressed than older peers and said they felt isolated working alone. They often lacked the space or money to create good workspaces for remote work. As a group, they had difficulty feeling engaged or excited about work and found it difficult to get in a word during meetings or bring new ideas to the table."

The evidence is in: working from home is a failed experiment - " the results of a recent, large study from Microsoft.  According to the study, almost two-thirds of the more than 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets said that they were “craving” (yes, craving) more in-person time with their teams and 37% of the global workforce complained that their companies were “asking too much of them” when out of the office.  About 54% of these people feel overworked and 39% are simply exhausted. Thanks to these new working from home arrangements, meetings are significantly longer, “chats” have risen 45% and 41m more emails were sent in one month alone (February 2021) compared with the same month last year (remember when email was supposed to be “dead”?).  While older workers and bosses seem to be handling things in stride (61% of them say they are “thriving” right now, a number that clocks in at a whopping 23 percentage points higher than those without decision-making authority), the younger generations – specifically the Gen-Zers (aged between 18 and 25) – are struggling to balance work with life and are simply more exhausted than their counterparts. They reported difficulties feeling engaged or excited about work, getting a word in during meetings and bringing new ideas to the table.  Worse yet is the killing of innovation. Microsoft reports that companies have become more siloed than they were before the pandemic. And while interactions with our close networks have actually been more frequent than previously, the fact is that even these close team interactions have started to diminish over time. “When you lose connections, you stop innovating,” said Dr Nancy Baym, senior principal researcher at Microsoft. “It’s harder for new ideas to get in and groupthink becomes a serious possibility.”... Unfortunately, the work from home trend is too strong to resist. That’s because there’s this illusion of more independence, flexibility and control over one’s life which is probably why 70% of the workers who participated in the Microsoft survey, despite all their concerns, still desire some type of flexible work options in the future.  There are also powerful interests at work to keep us at home. Big tech firms like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Apple love these arrangements because it ties their customers even further to their cloud-based collaboration subscription models. The giant media providers see more people at home clicking on their content. Big retail firms are enjoying the surge in online sales driven by bored, unsupervised workers. And corporate employers are sniffing big savings in real estate costs as well as the ability to hire better (and cheaper) talent regardless of geographic limitations. And yet, study after study shows that people working from home are more stressed and less happy. The model has proven to create more disruption, less productivity and diminished innovation."

Almost one in four want to work from home forever - "Almost one in four workers hope never to set foot in the office again, with 7.5m people keen to permanently work from home every day of the week.  At the same time slightly more (28pc) are desperate to get back and hope never to have to turn their kitchen or spare bedroom into a home office, according to a new survey by Deloitte...   Most under-35s find home working challenging, indicating the difficulties involved in a short-term pandemic measure becoming a permanent state of affairs.   Will Gosling of Deloitte said: “Those coming into the workforce, in their early careers, are sponges. They can learn technical stuff anywhere, but what gives them the edge and what makes work interesting and exciting is the stuff you cannot learn in a textbook or an online course. “It is how people work and interact. It is observing how more experienced people handle different situations. You cannot teach that directly. People in the early stages of their career know that, and they are yearning for it.”"

Howard Levitt: The boss is going back to the office and you should too - "If — a big “if” — employees maintain the quantity and quality of their work, employers reap the benefits at reduced overhead. There will be savings on everything, from rent, fewer office supplies to a reduced need for positions such as office managers. How many office managers do you need when the office is working remotely? Businesses will employ the “hotel” concept. There will no longer be assigned workspaces. Instead, employees who must attend the workplace for meetings will book an office space or boardroom... Should an employee agree to work remotely? This is not necessarily a good idea, particularly for those who want to advance their career.  All organizations have a centre of power and it isn’t in the “cloud.” There is usually one individual who is the nominal head and those who have trusted personal relationships with that “Boss” form the centre of power. By powerful, we mean individuals with the authority and ability to influence careers. Employees want, or should want, to be one of those trusted few. These kinds of relationships are difficult if not impossible to foster online.  Being far from the centre of power can be damaging to an employee’s career. The more an employer encourages an employee to work remotely the less important that employee is seen to be, and the more difficult it will be for that employee to advance. This is not new. As long as there has been work, being sent to the “minors” or the satellite office has been recognized as deleterious. It is no different because an employee is exiled virtually instead of physically.  After all, who is more likely to get promoted? An individual who has developed a personal relationship with their superior? Or an employee who, at best, is seen occasionally online at predetermined times.  Likewise, when it comes time to cut staff. Who is going to be retained? Employees are constantly surprised when relationships trump merit in promotion and dismissal discussions. Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase agrees.  He recently commented that working remotely “does not work for young people.”  It doesn’t work for those who “want to hustle.” In other words, if you are working from home you are just not that important."

Jamie Dimon Says Work From Home ‘Doesn’t Work’ For Young Staff, Management - Bloomberg

Companies drop plans to sublease space as more workers want to return to the office - The Globe and Mail - "employees report they want to return to the office, at least for a few days a week... “About a year ago, [employees] said they were great with working from home. Now we are finding that the majority of them want to come to the office,” said Roula Vrsic, Intelex’s senior vice-president of marketing. “It is not lost on us that people want to see others,” she said... “The workplace has lost the diversity of opinions and the value of water cooler talk,” Ms. Vrsic said."

Canadian workers are ready to come back to the office - "Half of respondents said they’re more productive and effective in a virtual work environment. That was a drop from 59 per cent in a similar survey a year ago, suggesting that 14 months of work-from-home arrangements are taking a toll on some employees... Among KPMG’s findings:  Sixty-three per cent say they want to return to a physical workspace or office. KPMG partner Leigh Harris said that’s consistent with other research showing the pandemic is affecting Canadians’ mental health “and many feel overworked and burnt out” by the pandemic.  Nearly half of those polled are worried they could be discriminated against or overlooked for job opportunities if they keep working remotely."

Links - 3rd November 2023 (2 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

Racism in the mask of anti-imperialism - "Yesterday in London the left marched alongside a mob that was celebrating the mass murder of Jews. They came in from their gentrified suburbs, macchiato in hand, and mingled with keffiyeh-wearing bigots who were using a megaphone to taunt Jews with stories of their annihilation. These lowlifes hollered the Arabic battle cry, ‘Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return!’. That’s a reference to the 7th-century Battle of Khaybar that took place in what is now Saudi Arabia, when Muhammad and his henchmen slaughtered Jews, including women and children, for their ‘treachery’. To hear this vile cry on the streets of London in 2023 is an outrage against our nation. Jew hate is an emergency now.   It was on Saturday’s ‘March for Palestine’ that the menacing medieval chant rang out. No doubt leftish chin-strokers will gloss over it by saying it’s just an impassioned Arab saying, not something we should take too literally. Please. To scream with glee about an ancient massacre of Jews just three weeks after a modern massacre of Jews has one meaning and one meaning only: to take public pleasure in the killing of Jews. And to hint that we need more of it. That woke activists who will blacklist you from polite society if you say ‘women don’t have penises’ will not make a full-throated condemnation of literally genocidal cries in central London is a new low. There should be no coming back from this. It was a small group of people in a very large protest, others will say. And? Imagine there was a demo against mass immigration at which ‘just’ a few score people started chanting for the lynching of black people. No big deal? Or picture a protest against the building of a new mosque at which ‘just’ a few handfuls giggled as they made mocking references to the racist barbarism visited upon the Muslims of Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019...   Yesterday’s march was an ugly, reactionary affair. It was London’s third weekend featuring a virulently anti-Israel march, masquerading as a pro-Palestine march, since the Hamas pogrom of 7 October. One-thousand four-hundred people murdered by an army of anti-Semites for the crime of being Jews in Israel and London’s so-called progressives beat the streets to damn… Israel. To spit bile at the nation that just suffered one of the worst acts of racist terrorism of modern times. Even to imply that Israel had it coming, being a Zionist-Nazi state full of colonial-settler scum. The speed with which Britain’s left turned the worst act of anti-Jewish violence since the death camps into yet another opportunity to bash the Jewish State really has been awful and galling.  There was yet more anti-Semitic branding of Israelis as ‘Nazis’ at yesterday’s demo. ‘Zionism = Nazism’, said one placard. ‘Jews know genocide’, said another, next to the claim that Israel has dropped ‘12,000 tons of bombs’ on Gaza. Masked men chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’. There were black Islamic flags. ‘From London to Gaza, we’ll have an intifada’, Islamists chanted. An intifada in London? What can that mean other than attacking supporters of Israel, Zionists, Jews? (The Second Intifada of 2000-2005 took the lives of more than a thousand Israelis, many in suicide bombings and rocket attacks.) We’ve seen similar bigotry dolled up as radicalism in the US. Some campus leftists have openly celebrated the monsters who massacred Jewish women and children on 7 October. The chilling slogan ‘Glory to our martyrs’ was projected on to a building at George Washington University. At New York University protesters made a particularly chilling chant. ‘We don’t want no Jew state, we want all of it’, they said. Jew state – tell me that isn’t racism; tell me that’s just politics. At Tulane University in New Orleans a Jewish student who tried to stop protesters from setting fire to the Israeli flag was whacked on the head with a flagpole. It’s funny how ‘anti-Zionism’ has the exact same consequences as anti-Semitism: the public beating of Jews. In London, too, we’ve seen mobs of Islamists scream at and chase people who wave the Israeli flag. The idea that ‘anti-Zionism’ is different to anti-Semitism is completely untenable now. The mass gatherings of ‘anti-Zionists’ we’ve seen across the West have surely exposed how meaningless that distinction has become. When ‘anti-Zionism’ involves mocking massacred Jews, libelling Jews as Nazis, describing the murder of Jews as ‘resistance’, beating Jews in public and chanting about the destruction of ‘the Jew State’, you know it’s racism. You know it’s the oldest hatred with a makeover. You know it is racial contempt for the Jews dolled up as an edgy critique of the Jewish State. This was horrifically brought home by a chant on the streets of Stockholm. ‘No Zionists on our streets!’, a huge mob cried. What can that mean? Sweden is not a Zionist state. It has no Zionist officials. It means Jews. It means ‘No Jews on our streets’. It is a desire for a pogrom hiding its shamefulness behind a veil of politics.   The sinister streak in so-called anti-Zionism was grimly captured at another demo in the UK on Saturday, in Dundee. Chris Law, an MP for the Scottish National Party, gave a speech in which he criticised both Israel’s ‘indiscriminate actions’ in Gaza and Hamas’s murder of Jews. The crowd went ballistic. They seized the mic from him. They screamed in his face. ‘Say genocide! Condemn Israel!’, shouted one man. Even showing sympathy for slaughtered Jews is a risky business now... The British left loves to reminisce about the Battle of Cable Street of October 1936, when the working classes in London’s East End stood shoulder to shoulder with local Jews against a march by Oswald Mosley’s fascists. ‘I’d have taken action, too’, they say. Well, mini Cable Streets are breaking out across Britain right now, with open expressions of anti-Semitism and Jews feeling cornered by bigotry. And the left is taking action, that’s for sure: they’re on the streets on the side of the anti-Semites."

Hussain Abdul-Hussain on X - "Protest in London is bigger than in Beirut, and that is because it is much easier to call on people to die (for colonization or whatever other rubbish reason) from your comfort in London while in waterless, electricity-less Beirut, you are realistic, know that Islamism has brought this misery on everyone."
Marleah Aragon on X - "Wouldnt this be classified as a form of colonization?"
Christopher Lawrence on X - "Colonizers can only be European. Get with the program lol"

Meme - Nathan Cofnas @nathancofnas: "5:33 PM: Jews now know that DEI means it's okay to kill Jews. This changes everything.
12:18 AM: I will never stop voting for DEI. Conservatives are racist."
Not up for trouble, please stop asking @agraybee: "I don't think non-Jews really grasp that Jewish people's fundamental social trust has been permanently undermined. We now know that our companies' DEl officers would gleefully celebrate our deaths if we were killed by the right people."
Not up for trouble, please stop asking @agraybee: "Let me be abundantly fucking clear here: I'm never to going stop respecting pronouns, voting for Democrats and pointing out that IQ scores are racist pseudoscience. Just because I'm disillusioned with DEI doesn't mean I'm blackpilled."
Ironic. Liberals love to mock poor people for supposedly voting against their own interests. But this only happens when you vote for conservatives, rather than liberals who want to kill Jews

Meme - Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63: "Let me guess, when these people start smashing up Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues, they'll be defended for free speech and just breaking a few windows... "
StopAntisemitism: "George Washington University - students are projecting horrifying messages onto a school library building glorifying Hamas terrorists that beheaded babies, raped teenage girls, and murdered 1400+ people. We call on President @PresidentofGW to immediately expel those involved..."

Meme - Karol Markowicz @karol: "Why it is not, has never been, and never will be antisemitic to criticize George Soros."
"Groups behind Israel-bashing protests backing Hamas attacks got $15M-plus from Soros"

Meme - Derek Thompson @DKThomp: "In the last few years, it's become more common for scientists and public health officials-sensing a vacuum of political leadership-to take political stances on contentious issues. I'm not sure the science community has fully grappled with the risks of that shift. Eg->"
Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt: "Astounding: @TheLancet is set to publish a letter from 2000 medical professionals -in which these doctors DEBATED whether to demand a release of hostages, and it "was removed" based on "feedback." I guess primum non nocere doesn't apply to Jews."
Clearly, Science is neutral and the gospel truth, and if you don't Trust The Science, you are a Dangerous Denier

Meme - Antonio Garcia Martinez (agm.eth) @antoniogm: "Google Maps has this helpful new feature that shows where bomb shelters are in Israel, so you know where to run when the sirens sound."
Amy Alkon @amyalkon: "Gaza has no bomb shelters because the Hamas terrorists in power stole the western aid dollars that could have built them to build tunnels to slaughter Jews and import weapons and ammo in turn causing the need for bomb shelters in Gaza. Because no, Jews will not compliantly climb onto the boxcars. Israel will defend itself."
Andy Ellis @csoandy: "Technically, Gaza is riddled with bomb shelters, underground, under hospitals but only Hamas gets to use them."

Zach Kessel on X - "At the end of a column by @sahar_tartak, editors at @yaledailynews affixed a “correction,” saying claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men are “unsubstantiated.” @Yale’s student newspaper is running cover for Hamas."
Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 on X - "In my thread on Palestinian terrorist atrocities — clearly raped bodies of women whose faces were set on fire after they were raped. There is also that one family who received a video of their daughter being raped by 6 Palestinians who then shot her 15 times and urinated on her…"

Meme - Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok: "SCOOP: School makes Jewish students sign gag order after being attacked
Jewish middle schoolers at @MBUSDnews were reportedly attacked by other students after Hamas attacks on Israel. Some students allegedly said "revenge is beautiful" and "all Jews should be killed." The school investigated and concluded that it wasn't hate speech, the perpetrators received no punishment, and the school made the victims sign a gag order to not discuss the incident. Since the school doesn't want anyone discussing it, definitely don't share this or tag them!
But wait.. there's more! Just a few months ago the @ADLCalifornia congratulated @MBUSDnews on being a school with "no place for hate." Apparently some forms of hate are actually allowed. Will the @ADL condemn this? Will they offer support to the students affected?"

Shocking pro-Hamas, anti-Israel rallies lay bare the limits of Canadian pluralism - "While most of us mourned and lamented the inhumanity of Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel, a small minority among us have defended and even celebrated them. These individuals and organizations have relied on Canada’s promise of freedom to countenance and glorify the indiscriminate violence of a group designated as a terrorist organization by our own government.   There have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country that have effectively affirmed Hamas’s terrorism. The videos from these pro-Hamas rallies in cities such as Mississauga and Montreal have been shocking. It must be said that rallies in support of a terrorist organization that has carried out a systematic campaign of killing women and children are incompatible with Canadian values.  Meanwhile, groups such as the Muslim Association of Canada and National Council of Canadian Muslims (which according to online records have received more than $1.34 million in federal funding between them since 2018) may be more careful in their messaging, but they’re still ultimately equivocal about what the world has witnessed. Their tendency towards “two-sideism” and other prevaricating devices have obscured the extent to which they implicitly affirm Hamas’ narrative. If in the face of overwhelming evidence of brutality and cruelty against Israelis your first instinct is to lament “the tyranny and terrorism of the Zionists” or criticize Israel’s democratic leadership, you’ve for all intents and purposes exposed your true character.   Which it must be said is fair enough as far as some pluralistic protections go. One can oppose the current Israeli government or even critique the State of Israel itself and of course still find him or herself able to avail Canada’s protections of freedom of conscience or expression. We cannot and should not police one’s thoughts per se. But it certainly doesn’t mean that radical groups are entitled to taxpayer dollars or that individuals who cross the line from reasonable disagreements to the promotion and glorification of violence shouldn’t face sanction.   These basic observations shouldn’t in and of themselves be controversial. Our commitment to pluralism must be uncompromising up and until it comes to undermine the basic security and stability of our own society. As my former boss Brian Lee Crowley has often said: “[we cannot permit] our list of freedoms to become our suicide note.”"

Horrifying videos show Hamas terrorist invasion of Israel - "Twisted Hamas fighters are seen parading a young woman’s naked and battered body through the streets of Israel, as unverified clips surfaced Saturday purportedly showing the sick aftermath of the terrorist organization’s surprise assault on the country.  The video, posted to X, formerly Twitter, appears to show the naked body of a young woman, identified as Shani Louk, a young German tattoo artist, being paraded in the back of a pickup truck, while gun-toting terrorists chant “Allahu Akbar” — Arabic for “God is great.”  Dozens in the screaming crowd surround the vehicle and chase after the gunman, echoing the deranged fighters’ cries and spitting on the woman’s body... “These are the people world leaders want Israel to make peace with”... “These are the people [President Biden] and the [United Nations] say are good people who deserve every consideration. Pray for Israel.”... Another clip, which The Post likewise was unable to verify, purportedly shows the body of a bloodied Israeli soldier being dragged out of a car in the Gaza Strip by Palestinian fighters before it is dropped on the ground.  As armed masked men jump and cheer around the body, a maddened group of men swarm in to savagely kick the lifeless figure repeatedly."
Why would Israel do this?

Visegrád 24 on X - "BREAKING: Israel’s President Yitzchak Herzog has confirmed that the German-Israeli citizen Shani Louk has been found beheaded. He tells @BILD: “Her skull was found. That means those barbaric, sadistic animals simply chopped off her head.”"
Time to blame Jewish false flags/lies

Cornell professor 'exhilarated' by Hamas attacks apologizes - "A Cornell professor who said he was “exhilarated” by the Hamas attacks on Israel has apologized for his incendiary comments, admitting his choice of words was “reprehensible.”  Russel Rickford, an associate professor of history, addressed the pro-Hamas statements he made at an off-campus protest over the weekend in a statement to the school’s paper, the Cornell Daily Sun.  “I apologize for the horrible choice of words that I used in a portion of a speech that was intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression,” Rickford wrote... The educator — who “specializes in African-American political culture,” according to his biography — apologized to students for his “reckless remarks” and said he “unequivocally opposes and denounces racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, militarism, fundamentalism, and all systems that dehumanize, divide, and oppress people.”... “It was exhilarating. It was exhilarating, it was energizing. And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, the shifting of the violence of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated,” Rickford said. Rickford had initially refused to walk back his statement, saying Monday: “What I was referring to is in those first few hours, when they broke through the apartheid wall, that it seemed to be a symbol of resistance, and indeed a new phase of resistance in the Palestinian struggle.”  But it seems the professor changed course after students called for the school’s administration to take action against him.  “This guy essentially outright said that he was happy, exhilarated, excited, energized, right, by the murder of innocent civilians. The massacre of civilians and the raping of women,” said Netanel Shapira, who has dual Israeli citizenship.  Another student, Amanda Silberstein, 21, said she felt “deeply disgusted” after hearing Rickford’s comment: “Seeing that video, my initial reaction was: ‘This is a professor, this is an educator, you know, students are supposed to internalize and respect, you know, the words their professor says.’ It was really, really shocking and his words have meaning.” Cornell University president Martha E. Pollack and Board of Trustees chair Kraig H. Kayser called Rickford’s statements last weekend “reprehensible” and said they demonstrate “no regard whatsoever for humanity.”  “The university is taking this incident seriously and is currently reviewing it consistent with our procedures,” the school said in a statement to The Post."

Putin claims Ukraine, US spy agencies were behind mob storming Dagestan airport looking for Israelis - "Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday accused Ukrainian and Western spy agencies of helping engineer a riot in the southern region of Dagestan, where a mob stormed the airport after a flight from Israel landed there.  More than 20 people were hurt — none Israelis — in clashes that Putin cast as part of U.S. efforts to weaken Russia.  Hundreds of angry men, some carrying banners with antisemitic slogans, rushed onto the tarmac of the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region, on Sunday night, looking for Israeli passengers on the flight from Tel Aviv.  Police officers and civilians were injured and two of them were in critical condition, regional health authorities said. More than 80 people were detained in the unrest, according to police. Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a criminal probe on charges of organizing mass unrest... Video and photos on social media showed some in the crowd waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great," as they broke into the airport terminal. Some held handwritten banners saying, “Child killers are not welcome in Dagestan” and “We’re against Jewish refugees.” Some rushed onto the tarmac Sunday night and surrounded the jet belonging to the Russian carrier Red Wings, only to find it empty. Others stopped a bus carrying passengers from the flight from Israel, including some children who underwent medical treatment and their parents, and started examining their passports. They eventually let them go after some passengers on the bus who had dual Russian and Israeli citizenship showed their Russian passports, according to Russian media reports... Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti cited Dagestan Gov. Sergei Melikov as saying that the unrest was coordinated in a Telegram channel run by “traitors” based in Ukraine, with the goal of destabilizing Dagestan and fueling unrest. Some local Telegram channels had said before the unrest that “refugees from Israel” were coming to Dagestan. Following some of those posts, a crowd reportedly gathered outside a hotel in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt on Saturday, searching for Israeli nationals staying in the hotel, but left after not finding any."

Mike on X - "NYT: Hamas has stored in its tunnels enough supplies to last 3-4 months of fighting. It has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets, caches of ammunition, explosives and materials for their production, warehouses with food, water and medicine."
Bub pickin sports on X - "I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's the truth. There are literally millions of people who will read that headline and scream that Israel is the villain for not supplying water."
Patricia Johnson on X - "Read the comments to the NYT article. The most popular, when I saw it, was that Israel was responsible for providing supplies for the Palestinian people because they are the controlling government.?? But they aren’t. Hamas is."

Jonathan Kay on X - "CUPE just re-elected @FredHahnCUPE, days after he celebrated the October 7 terrorist attacks as exemplifying "the power of resistance around the globe.""

David Shor on X - "NYPD: Jews should stay home!!! “Jews should definitely avoid the Area,” a police source told COL. “There’s no intel at this time in which direction the protest will head,” “Locals should definitely stay away from Eastern Parkway in that area.”"
James Lindsay, walking the other way on X - "So sectors of the United States are now no-go zones for Jews because of our ridiculous tolerance for and deference to Woke and the activism it supports?"

Philissa Cramer on X - "The student government at Brandeis University, founded after the Holocaust by the U.S. Jewish community, this week voted down a resolution to condemn Hamas. “It’s absolutely infuriating,” said a Jewish student who resigned over the 6-10-5 vote."

Gad Saad on X - "We often hear that the hate is solely toward the occupying Zionists (it is not).  If so, why are so many visible Jewish institutions in the West (schools, synagogues, community centres) facing increased security threats?  Is it that all Jews are targets because they are likely to support Israel?  If so, if all Jews are responsible, why does the same logic not apply to Noble Peace of Perpetual Peace?"

Thread by @AGHamilton29 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Outside the obvious, let me give an example of why it is irresponsible for news networks to use death totals from Hamas & how this choice isn't new:
Back in 2022, during the Second Intifada with a wave of terrorism, Israel tracked many of the attacks to the Jenin refugee camp. Israel decided they had no choice but to go into the camp, which militants had boob-trapped and prepared for a battle. Israel went in on April 2nd. By April 7th, Palestinians were claiming over 500 dead. In the next week, they would raise that number to thousands. CNN reported the Palestinian claims of 900+ dead. So did BBC. There were claims of a massacre, bodies being hidden etc. that dominated the press.  The Israeli operation ended on April 11th. Human rights groups and the UN then went in.  The actual casualty total based on those groups, which weren't exactly friendly with Israel, was 53 Palestinians. That includes militants and some civilians. So overnight the death count went from 900+ civilians to 53, & mostly militants. 23 Israeli soldiers were also killed. Now the thing about the Jenin battle is bc it was in the West Bank, the numbers could be verified. CNN & others learned little from that. Hamas is even less reliable than the PA & has full control of Gaza so there is no verifying anything they put out. These media outlets know this. They know Hamas is making up numbers (bc it's impossible to provide #'s in the time they do). News orgs are admittedly in a tough position with Gaza bc there are no other sources and people are clearly dying, but taking the Hamas numbers as if they are real or not at least informing their audience the numbers come from Hamas, is clearly irresponsible & harmful. Sorry I meant 2002*"

Thread by @realchrisrufo on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The Left is making a tactical blunder trying to turn "Free Palestine" into a George Floyd moment. Little upside: there is no proposed policy they can achieve. And huge downside: we can tether them to terror and start alienating affluent, high-capacity groups from their coalition. Notice that capital is already beginning to shift: Donors are forcing changes at Ivy League universities and rerouting hundreds of millions of dollars in philanthropic support. The organized Right must accelerate this process and capture some of the largesse. The shift among Jewish Americans is also significant: many left-leaning Jews now see that campus antisemitism is part of the grand ideological project of the Left, and that bureaucracies of "diversity and inclusion" categorize them as oppressors, not worthy of protection. And the radical Left, after tasting blood during the Summer of George Floyd, is desperate to get another fix: thousands of academics justifying Hamas terror; mobs assembling under a foreign flag; establishment liberals too scared to condemn them. Disaster."

Oli London on X - "Hamas Crisis Actor pretends to be a victim of an Israeli air strike- appearing in a hospital bed while pretending to be in a critical condition as two supporting actors hold his hand.   In reality, the man is a Hamas musician and actor who has been appearing in various videos for the terror group.   One video he is seen celebrating in the streets as Hamas fire rockets towards Israel.   In another video he can be seen ‘crying’ after claiming his apartment was hit by an airstrike.   And in another video he is seen singing while brandishing a gun while praising Hamas."

Thread by @DavidDecosimo on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "If you are a university donor, this is a key moment. You're seeing the bad fruit of 2 related things:
1. Years of faculty searches that have been explicitly ideological & partisan, prizing & hiring for the illiberal radicalism on display in the Kendi debacle & Hamas-praise alike.
What you see from faculty exhilarated by murder or who require all teaching be antiracist & decolonial is a feature not a bug. It's the fruit of hiring in ideological fields that normalize & prize radicalism. They're outliers, but they're doing just what they've been paid to do.
2. Senior administrators, who've spent a decade violating due institutional neutrality, brashly speaking on divisive political topics, always in one partisan direction & always lockstep with ideological DEI, which they've made both normative & as important as teaching & research.
Presidents were silent on Hamas terrorism b/c the same DEI folks who told them what to say every time before told them what to do now. Much DEI is expressly anti-Israel (settler colonialism/whiteness) & conflates mandatory support for Palestine (liberation) w/ supporting Hamas.
You can change things. Here's what I urge you to demand, all of which universities should do regardless:
❌An end to institutional statements & partisanship on contested political & ethical topics
✅Endorsement *and practical enforcement* of the Kalven Report & Chicago Principles
❌No sanctions for *protected* faculty speech, however offensive. Unis are bad & biased on this front. That must stop. Don't demand sanctions yourself.
Yes, many of these folks should never have been hired, but trying to fire them is bad, in principle & strategically. What to do?
✅Creation of academic centers, chairs, & curricula focused on civil discourse, virtue, & the common good. Centers whose aim is research & teaching on these & liberty & citizenship amidst pluralism. Pulling this off well is tricky but there are models & strategies I'd point to.
❌Defund & de-radicalize DEI. Millions to pay faculty to cheer terror & presidents not to condemn it. There are real goods of diversity. DEI has little to do w/ them & can be as ideological as Marxism & MAGA. Stop funding a mission-undermining, hyper-partisan, cultural super-PAC.
❌Stop ideological hiring & audit programs that pursue it. Some searches require & select for radical politics/activism, not scholarly excellence. Those hired reject open inquiry & aim to transform the uni in their image. Meanwhile, non-ideological searches/fields go unfunded.
✅Creation of Free Speech & Academic Freedom Offices. While DEI gets millions, there is ZERO funding admin, or intention related to free speech & academic freedom. We desperately need dedicated staffing & institutionalization to advance, defend, & educate on free speech & AF.
Past weeks have revealed corruption decades in the making that, alongside the demographic cliff, put in question the university's future. Now is the time for wise, principled reform, lest we lose the vital contribution to the common good & human flourishing that unis can make."

End Wokeness on X - "MN City Council candidate Zach Metzger blocked off a highway and terrorized an old white man driving past a pro-Palestine riot  He posted the video today and instructed his followers to find the old man. He has since deleted the post. We saved it.  Drone footage shows a mob blocking off the road and surrounding his car. The desperate driver drove off, only to be chased down by Metzger and others."

Angela Van Der Pluym on X - "Black Israelites/ Hebrews fight Pro-Hamas protesters in Chicago FYI BHI believe they are the real Jews, and Jews like me are fake Khazarians. Did not have this on my 2023 bingo card."
i/o on X - "Really hard to pick a side in this one. You've got the super-racist borderline-retarded black guys who believe that they are the only real Jews. And then on the other side, you've got the behead-the-toddler and rape-the-raver apologists with their tablecloth scarves."

Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 on X - "Israel already offered a ceasefire in exchange for all the hostages. Al Arabia confirmed this. Hamas declined to give back the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire. Now, Hamas releases a video of hostages forced to request a ceasefire as if to blame Israel and Netanyahu. This video is a terrorist political ploy."

Eli Kowaz on X - "“The amazing, brilliant offensive waged on October 7th.” This is real, Natalie Knight at a Pro-Hamas rally in Vancouver, Canada. To see people celebrate the massacre of Jews only a few minutes from where I grew up makes me sick to my stomach."
Christina Hoff Sommers on X - "Meet terrorist-enthusiast  Dr. Natalie Knight — “Indigenous Curriculum Consultant” at Langara College in Vancouver. @TCDCLangara  & @langaracollege   What explains her sociopathic worldview? Mental illness may play a role—but what classes did she take in high school, college &for her PhD program at Simon Fraser U? Her doctoral dissertation holds some clues: “Dispossessed Indigeneity: Literary Excavations of Internalized Colonialism” which, her bio says, “moves between the separate fields of Marxism, feminism, settler colonialism, and critical Indigenous studies in a compelling and novel way.” Oy vey."

Melissa Chen on X - "The slaughter of Jews and rape of their daughters were openly promised on the streets of London in 2021. It was delivered on 7th Oct 2023. Wake up"

Yashar Ali 🐘 on X - "In a conversation with @NorahODonnell , Secretary Hillary Clinton on those calling for a ceasefire:   “People who are calling for a ceasefire now do not understand Hamas, that is not possible. It would be such a gift to Hamas because they would spend whatever time there was a ceasefire in effect rebuilding their armaments, creating stronger positions to be able to fend off an eventual assault by the Israelis.”   She also added that the Israeli government had a responsibility to limit civilian casualties."
Disagreeing with Hillary is misogynistic, so