For just the fifth time in 125 years, Christmas and Chanukah started on the same day this past week. You’d think maybe the world is aligning for good things. That the messages the two holidays offer, the messages of love, freedom, brotherhood and peace would unite us.
Sorry for being the grinch, but events of the past week point to a world that is more upside down now than it’s ever been.
Let’s begin in Poland.
Before World War II, 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland. At the war’s end, about 380,000 survived, according to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel.
Yes, Poland was victimized by the Nazis. Yes, the Nazis murdered many Poles. Yes, there were some Poles that heroically tried to shield Jews from deportation and death. Yes, there were other Poles that saw the Nazi occupation as a way to help them commit genocide against their Jewish citizens. Yes, even after the war ended, Jews in Poland were murdered in pogroms.
Yes, all that was a generation ago, but this past week, it came crashing back to life. Poland threatened to enforce the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he attended the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most notorious of the six Nazi death camps on Polish soil.
The Polish government says it has to abide by the ICC’s ruling. In other words, it’s just following orders. The Poles are nothing but consistent.
That the democratically elected prime minister of the Jewish state that arose out of the horrors of Nazi death camps, that Bibi Netanyahu cannot attend the Auschwitz commemoration, is an outrage and it is a disgrace.
If the nations that fought the Nazis in WWII want to show they are not lily-livered, they should boycott the commemoration that’s scheduled for the end of January. They should tell the Polish government to jump on the right side of history, or forever be embarrassed by what the Jerusalem Post called this “obscene irony.”
On the topic of obscene, how about the glorification by some of Luigi Mangione, the alleged cold blooded assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson.
This past week, a grinning Mangione entered his not guilty plea to first degree murder inside a Manhattan courtroom.
Outside, about 30 idiots gathered, wearing their masks, of course, to support the alleged killer.
I know, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But, as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said after Mangione’s arrest after fleeing to his state, “In some dark corners, this killer is being hailed as a hero. Hear me on this, he is no hero.”
Allegedly pumping three bullets into to the back and leg of an American business executive walking on a Manhattan street, is not heroic by any measure. But Luigi was lionized as that “hot assassin” on social media.
Online stores are selling Luigi Mangione T-shirts, hoodies and mugs. Click on Etsy, and search under Luigi Mangione and see what you can buy.
Mangione is a false social justice hero to the sick social media crowd.
Apparently, it’s totally cool for aggrieved private citizens to mete out capital punishment as he sees fit. His ideological kin folk are high-fiving each other with approval.
What Mangione allegedly did can’t be viewed as an isolated act, concocted solely in his perverted mind. No, not at all. The training and legitimization of his nihilism flows in a torrent down from the peaks of US higher education, propped up by a news media that has tried to, if not justify, then at least explain Mangione’s alleged criminality.
Here’s just one example. Anthony Zenkus, a Columbia University professor of social work, had no sympathy for the Thompson killing. He wrote on X, “I will mourn the death of one man after I finish mourning the deaths of the nearly 700,000 other people who have died in the past 10 years alone because of private health insurance. It make take a while.”
There are other Luigi Mangione’s out there, suckled on the the sick and twisted ideology that Zenkus and his ivory tower ilk feed to their students.
Friends, we are in trouble.
Speaking of that withering bastion of higher education on Morningside Heights, Columbia just pulled another beaut.
Professor Joseph Massad, called Hamas’ attack on October 7th “awesome,” “astounding,” “incredible,” and the terrorists “Palestinian resistance fighters.” So Columbia has determined he’s the perfect person to teach a class entitled “The History of Jewish Enlightenment in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism through the current peace process between the state of Israel and the Arab states and the Palestinian national movement.”
Columbia admits his words after 10/7 “created pain for many in our community and contributed to the deep controversy on our campus,” but it has done nothing to curtail him. Whatever happened to trigger words, let alone micro-agressions that were used to cancel so many decent people in education, politics and business?
Columbia has tried to justify his course saying it’s an elective, not a requirement.
But would it have a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer teaching an elective on the emancipation of the African American slaves, the impact of the Jim Crow laws and the history of the civil rights movement. Of course not, nor should it.
Massad is rabidly anti-Israel. He doesn’t believe it has a right to exist. Period, end of story.
So you can imagine what the sixty students who can take his course will be thinking after the semester ends.
Actually, they shouldn’t have to register for the course or bother with term papers or exams. All they need to do is to watch a hate-filled interview Massad gave this past October where he accused Israel of genocide, settler-colonialism and “utter racism and racial contempt for its racial inferiors” which, he says, is totally part of western values, which I guess includes the United States.
He’s an unrepentant Jew-hater and Columbia is shamefully complicit in aiding and abetting his antisemitism.
But I can’t leave you with so much darkness during this time of the year that is illuminated with so many festival lights.
Here’s some good news.
The Israel Defense Forces released its assessment of its war on Hezbollah.
- About 6500 dead terrorists. Thousands more wounded.
- The vast majority of Hezbollah’s senior command, about 13 members, killed.
- Approximately 70% of its strategic weapons destroyed, like all sorts of missiles and rocket launchers.
- 85,000 weapons confiscated.
Chalk one up for the good guys. The world desperately need more good guys.
And during this holiday season especially, please don’t forget the Gaza hostages, including seven American citizens, still in Hamas hell for 451 days, longer than the Iranians held the US hostages after the embassy takeover in 1979.