No apology

Here's the apology the kids at Harvard and others who support Hamas deserve

A few hundred students walked out of Harvard’s commencement in solidarity with 13 of their classmates who were denied diplomas because they were the core idiots in the encampment to force Harvard to be more biased against Jews and Israel. How brave. How thoughtful, intelligent, and righteous. These kids have sacrificed so much and endured such persecution in their pursuit of justice. May they be rewarded in commensurate fashion for the massive risk they’ve taken on.

Source: Screen Capture from video published by The Boston Globe

They’re stupid. Many of them are stupid in the way the kids of Delta Tau Chi at Faber College were stupid: never pass up a good opportunity to stick it to The Man. But many of them are just ignorant, and have paired that ignorance with some kind of camaraderie that removes the soul and conscience, leaving only the smoked-out ruins of their brain, which has been worn smooth by mental masturbation and lack of serious thinking activity.

These kids could not muster up the courage to walk out over the treatment of the Kurds by the Turks; or the Uighurs by the racist Han Chinese who run the PRC; or the centuries of persecution of the Roma people in Europe. They ally themselves with truly evil politicians and soulless ghouls who tell Israelis to “go back to Poland,” when there are far more who hail from Sudan living in that small nation. How about telling Israelis to go back to Iran, or Algeria, or any number of Arab states that once supported thriving Jewish communities which have been brutally expelled and destroyed?

No. They’re too ignorant to know about these things, and far too intellectually incurious and lazy to learn them.

These kids are the same age as the women whose families have consented to having the Israeli government release video footage of their abduction at the hands of inhuman rapists who slaughtered their families and hauled them back to Gaza, where many are held deep in tunnels as human shields for the evil men who planned this pogrom. Watch it here.

The IDF keeps recovering the bodies of dead hostages, who were apparently killed on October 7th or shortly after. Their bodies were kept by Hamas, without revealing to Israel that they were dead, so they could be used as bargaining chips with the same value as living hostages. Hamas won’t agree to release any living hostages, though Israel’s government has reduced the number, knowing in fact that there are likely fewer than 30 alive (the number 33 was rejected in the last round of talks).

The whole world is consumed with Israel’s response to Hamas. I too have been critical of Israel’s government, and especially its prime minister. Many of the political decisions made over the past 15 years have allowed this disaster to happen, and have led up to a terrible war where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed. Israel could surely have handled the war in better ways. And we certainly don’t know how things will play out after Hamas is decimated and decapitated, its tunnel system greatly degraded and its ability to make war on Israel ground to dust. But one thing is fairly certain: Israel will finish the military job of ensuring Hamas can’t operate the way it did prior to October 7th.

These are political and humanitarian decisions and issues that will plague Israel for months, even years, after this chapter closes.

But let me make one thing clear. No Israeli needs to apologize for what Israel is doing now. No Jew needs to be harried into taking some “position” on the Gaza war, as part of any professional, artistic, academic, or social obligation. There are no apologies needed, nor should they be sought or required.

I don’t know what mental drug or indoctrination these college kids at elite schools have been mainlining, but they’ve lost the ability to function as responsible agents of social harmony. They see the world only through the lens of power, not moral agency. They forgive and ignore individual gruesome acts of gang rape, murder, torture, kidnapping, and things so beastly that they defy description. Yet, they become positively rabid (as long as it doesn’t affect their long-term ability to work at high income jobs) because Israel drops 2,000 pound iron bombs to destroy giant weapons caches hidden in mosques, kindergartens, and daycare centers in response to the a terrorist attack which in proportion to the U.S. population, was a dozen times worse than 9/11.

In response to 9/11, the U.S. killed in excess of 400,000 people, and negatively affected the lives of millions. We set up security apparatuses and internal secret police spy agencies that more than rival the STASI or SAVAK at the height of their power. We curtailed the liberty and ability of American citizens to live peaceful, private lives, probably forever, because of the actions of a few dozen terrorists who did some really awful things.

But compared to 10/7, 9/11 was an antiseptic news story. Most people who were not in New York City or Washington, D.C. on that day didn’t experience the horror up close and personal. Sure, many were stranded if they happened to be flying that day. And I remember the uncertainty and fear, living in a military town. But 10/7 was much different. Terrorists roamed the streets in towns and villages just miles from most Israelis, slaughtering, raping, and kidnapping people they personally knew. The sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and parents of every Israeli was impacted either by being victims of the evil, or serving in the military to fight it.

Let me bring up Dina Roubina, a Russian Jew living in Israel. She’s 70, and for 50 years she has been a Russian language writer, known well in academic quarters for her prose. Dina was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. If you’re not into reading Russian prose, you probably don’t know her. Perhaps some of the students at Harvard, who majored in Russian literature, have read some of her material. They teach that kind of stuff in elite Ivy League schools, I’ve heard.

Within weeks of 10/7, Mrs. Roubina wrote (in Russian) an open letter about the events of that day. She touched on many of the issues I already covered here, noting that Gaza had been receiving funds from “enlightened liberal Europe” for years: “…Gaza, despite receiving substantial financial aid from around the world for 18 years since Israel withdrew its troops, has not bothered to build its own water supply or power plant?” I think we know where the money went: into tunnels, rockets, and Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Mrs. Roubina was recently invited to an academic forum by Pushkin House in London. But after the invitation had been sent, the mandarins of that organization were compelled to ask her for “her position” on Israel. They needed only consult Google for their answer, but that would not satisfy the appetites of Marxist-adjacent self-righteous ignoramuses who must have a personal act of contrition from an actual Israeli.

I think it’s worthwhile to reprint Dina’s entire answer here. It can be found on X/Twitter, and required no translation from Russian.

Dear friends and colleagues

Recently, the Pushkin House in London, in collaboration with the University of London, invited me to a literary debate broadcast on Zoom. The conversation was supposed to be about my books.

I just received this email from the moderator of this meeting.

I suggest you read it, as well as my response, which I invite you to share on social networks

By: Nataliya Rulyova

Hello, Dina! The Pushkin House announced our upcoming conference on social media and immediately received critical messages regarding your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They wanted to understand your position on this issue before responding. Could you formulate your position and send it to me as soon as possible?

Please accept, Madam, the expression of my distinguished greetings,

Natasha

Here the reply:

Dear Natalia!

You've written beautifully about my novels, and I'm so sorry for the time you've wasted, because apparently we have to cancel our meeting.

The universities of Warsaw and Torun have just canceled lectures by the wonderful Russian-speaking Israeli writer Yakov Shechter on the life of Galicia's Jews in the 17th and 19th centuries - "to avoid making the situation worse."

I suspected that this would affect me too, since academia is now the main breeding ground for the most disgusting and virulent anti-Semitism, disguised as so-called "criticism of Israel."

I was expecting something like this, and I even decided to write you an email about it... but I put it aside. It's time for me to publish it.

This is what I want to say to all those who expect from me a quick and obsequious report on my position regarding my beloved country, which currently lives (and always has) surrounded by ferocious enemies who seek to destroy it . My country which is waging a just war today against a rabid, ruthless, deceptive and cunning enemy.

The last time I apologized was in elementary school, in the principal's office, I was 9 years old. Since then, I have been doing what I think is right, listening only to my conscience and expressing exclusively my understanding of the world order and human laws of justice.

Natalia, thank you for your efforts, and I personally ask you to send my answer to all those who are wondering:

"On October 7, Saturday, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the ruthless, well-trained, well-prepared and well-equipped Hamas terrorist regime of Iran, Hamas, which rules in the Gaza enclave (which Israel left around twenty years ago), attacked dozens of peaceful kibbutzim, and bombarded my country with tens of thousands of rockets.

Hamas has committed atrocities that even the Bible cannot describe, atrocities that rival the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah. Atrocities filmed by the way, by GoPro cameras, the murderers having taken the horror to the point of sending the images to their families or on social networks in real time.

For hours, thousands of happy, blood-drunk beasts raped women, children and men, shooting their victims in the crotch and heads, cutting off the women's breasts and playing football with them, cutting off the babies from the wombs of pregnant women and immediately decapitating them, tying up and burning the small children. There were so many charred bodies that, for many weeks, forensic pathologists could not cope with the enormous workload of identifying individuals.

A friend of mine, who worked in the emergency room of a New York hospital for 20 years, then in Israel for 15 years, was one of the first to arrive in the kibbutzim, as part of a team of rescuers and of doctors.

She still hasn't been able to sleep since.

While she is an emergency specialist, accustomed to dissected bodies and corpses, she fainted when she saw the macabre sight and vomited all the way back in the car.

Among the Hamas militants, Palestinian civilians rushed in, participating in pogroms of unprecedented scale, pillaging, killing, dragging everything they could get their hands on.

Among these "Palestinian civilians" were 450 members of this highly regarded organization UNRWA (United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

Judging by the utter joy of the population (also captured by thousands of mobile cameras), Hamas is supported by almost the entire population of Gaza.

But the essential is there for us:

More than two hundred Israelis, including women, children, the elderly and foreign workers, were dragged into the beast's den.

A hundred of them are still rotting and dying in Hamas dungeons. It goes without saying that these victims, who continue to be mocked, are of little concern to the “academic community”.

But that's not what I'm talking about right now. I am not writing this so that anyone will sympathize with the tragedy of my people.

During all these years, while the international community has literally poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this piece of land (the Gaza Strip) - and UNRWA's annual budget alone is equivalent to a BILLION dollars! - During all these years, Hamas used this money to build an empire with a complex system of underground tunnels, stockpile weapons, teach schoolchildren from primary school to disassemble and assemble a Kalashnikov assault rifle, print textbooks in which hatred of Israel is indescribable, in which even math problems look like this: "There were ten Jews, the shahid killed four, how many are left?...", calling for the murder of Jews with every word.

And now, when, finally shocked by the monstrous crime of these bastards, Israel is waging a war of annihilation against the Hamas terrorists, who so carefully prepared this war, who placed thousands of shells in all the hospitals, the schools, kindergartens... - this is where academia around the world is on the defensive, concerned about the "genocide of the Palestinian people" - based, of course, on data provided by... . Who ?

The academic community, which was not concerned about the massacres in Syria, nor the massacre in Somalia, nor the mistreatment inflicted on the Uighurs, nor the millions of Kurds persecuted by the Turkish regime for decades, this very worried community, which wears "arafatkas" - the trademark of murderers - around their necks and rallies under the slogan "Liberate Palestine from the river to the sea", which means the total destruction of Israel (and Israelis). "academics", as polls show, have no idea where this river is, what it is called, where certain borders are located. And it is this same public which asks me "to express a position clear on the issue.

Are you really serious?

As you know, I have been a professional writer for over fifty years. My novels have been translated into forty languages, including Albanian, Turkish, Chinese, Esperanto... and many more.

Now, with great pleasure, without choosing my expressions too much, I sincerely and with all the strength of my soul send to all the brainless "intellectuals" who are interested in my position to go fuck themselves.

Dina Roubina

I do apologize for her crude language, but that’s all. Those two words are the sum of what Israelis owe the students at Harvard. That’s the apology they deserve, and that’s all they’ll get.

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