7 More People Who Should Resign Immediately
Liz Magill, the University of Pennsylvania’s president, isn't the only person who ought to be vacating their position against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war.
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On Saturday, Liz Magill, the University of Pennsylvania’s president, resigned amid growing criticism over her testimony at a U.S. congressional hearing, where she refused to say — under repeated questioning — whether students calling for the genocide of Jews violates the school’s conduct policy.
Magill is not the only person who ought to be vacating their position against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. Here are seven others:
1) Antonio Guterres
This just in: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been implicitly supporting the Palestinian terror group, Hamas, during its war with Israel (which it heinously started).
Guterres’ latest pro-Hamas overture was last Wednesday, when he wrote to the fifteen member Security Council under Article ninety nine of the UN Charter, the first time any secretary-general has made use of it since 1989.
The article allows the secretary-general to bring to the council’s attention any matter believed to threaten international peace and security, yet it was not used during the Gulf War, 9/11, or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sorry to be the bearer of a bad conspiracy; however, I can’t help but wonder if Guterres indeed works for the 193 member states of the UN, or if he’s being financially coerced by Iran and/or Qatar, both staunch supporters of Hamas.
Let’s not forget: Iran and Qatar are allies, jointly controlling the world’s largest natural gas field along their maritime border. While Iran obviously has a bad name that much of the West wants nothing to do with, Qatar has become the largest foreign donor to American academia in the two decades since 9/11.1
2) Benjamin Netanyahu
For many Israelis and those who care about Israel across the world, the Israel-Hamas war has amplified speculation of tensions between Israel’s top brass during one of the worst crises in the country’s 75-year history — and heightened anxieties about Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, or lack thereof.
In addition to being formally indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in 2019, Netanyahu has led various governments which for years tried to divide power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — in other words, purposely propping up Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority.
This strategy clearly went up in smoke on October 7th, yet nine weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, Netanyahu continues to refuse any responsibility for it, only saying that everyone will have to answer questions after the war’s end.
He has, however, explicitly blamed his military and security chiefs, whom he said failed to give him any warning about the shocking Palestinian attacks on October 7th.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, considered one of Netanyahu’s close allies, said to Israel’s public radio a few weeks ago, on this subject: “Responsibility is something you take at the start of your job, not midway.”
3) Antony Blinken
On October 12th, just five days after the unspeakable Palestinian massacre in Israel, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Israel and told the press stories about his Jewish grandfather fleeing Russian pogroms, and about his stepfather surviving concentration camps during World War II.
But Blinken is not like his Jewish forefathers. He is the Jew who talks out of both sides of his mouth because he doesn’t want to rub anyone the wrong way. In doing so, Blinken rubs everyone the wrong way.
On multiple occasions, he has attempted to lecture Israeli leadership about how to fight a war that Israel neither started nor wanted. Blinken conditions every declaration of “Israel’s right to defend itself” with “the protection of Gaza civilians” and the urging to “take every possible measure to avoid civilian harm” — as if the Americans have traditionally fought wars this way.
In an Israeli war cabinet meeting on November 4th, it was reported that Blinken told Israeli leaders they must do more to ensure noncombatants in Gaza are not harmed by the fighting between Israel and Palestinian terrorists.
Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi apparently countered by telling Blinken there would be even more casualties if his military took the advice of U.S. generals sent to advise Israel on the operations in Gaza.
4) Bezalel Smotrich
In addition to inflammatory remarks that have not helped Israel’s international PR cause during the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich recently developed a plan that would ultimately enable hundreds of millions of shekels to flow to sectoral political interests, as part of about one billion shekels (approximately $270 million) in previously pledged coalition discretionary funds whose disbursal was not canceled by the war.
The head of the treasury, the Governor of the Bank of Israel, and senior economists begged Smotrich to divert these funds for the benefit of the country’s reconstruction efforts. It didn’t help, and in addition to the coalition discretionary funds, the Israeli government distributed 4.8 billion political shekels to ultra-Orthodox and settler constituents who, in some cases, are among the least affected by the war.
For example, 40 million shekels to strengthen Jewish identity and 77 million shekels to support ultra-Orthodox culture. Also, 55 million shekels were approved for the promotion of projects in the field of national heritage, 4.3 million for documenting Jewish settlement, and three million shekels for advice and guidance on family purity.
All at a time when Israel is fighting an existential war.
5) Hillel International’s Leadership
With more than 850 local Hillel chapters globally, Hillel International professes to be “the central address for Jewish campus life.” But considering that the organization has been around for exactly 100 years, we have a tremendous sample size in understanding just how much of a failure Hillel has been in dealing with Jewish safety on college campuses.
While pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into “advocacy” over the last few years, Hillel’s leadership routinely sucks up to university administrations and leaders.
Adam Lehman, the organization’s CEO, has organized “meetups” with U.S. college presidents and called on universities to educate students about Jewish identity and antisemitism. He’s even championed explicit Jewish involvement in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — policies that generally threaten students, professors, and the very credibility of higher education.
Ironically, Hillel’s slogan is: “Hillel is here for you.” As more than 75-percent of students are now dissatisfied with their university’s response to antisemitism, where is here, exactly?2
6) Mahmoud Abbas
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’ authoritarian rule — he’s now in the 18th year of a four-year term — has allowed his family’s consortium to dominate the West Bank’s commerce and labor markets, including owning shopping centers, media, and insurance companies, while distributing food, cigarettes, cosmetics, and other consumer items.
Leaked records from a Panamanian law firm show that Abbas and his two sons have used power and influence to control the two major Palestinian economic boards and build a West Bank economic empire worth more than $300 million.3
All this while the Palestinian Authority refuses to use its considerable international aid to relocate more than 100,000 Palestinians from Palestinian-controlled refugee camps to residential locations in the territories, preferring to leave them confined under extremely unpleasant conditions.
7) Jonathan Greenblatt
Appearing on a podcast recently, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, was asked why he’s dedicated the organization to decrying right-wing antisemitism, while largely ignoring or overlooking increasingly dangerous versions of it on the Left.
For context, Greenblatt’s ADL published a guide to America’s leading antisemites that did not include Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar, just a handful of meaningless right-wing bloggers. He has collaborated with Al Sharpton, one of America’s most outstanding antisemites. And Greenblatt’s ADL has repeatedly championed the Black Lives Matter movement, even after it became incredibly obvious that the movement was both financially corrupt and profoundly anti-Israel.
“We definitely do not play this left-right game,” Greenblatt said on the podcast, and then proceeded to blame the media for disseminating lies.
It’s not hard to know why, says Tablet magazine founder Alana Newhouse.
“Greenblatt can’t give up on this intersectional racket, since it’s responsible for nearly doubling the ADL’s coffers under his reign,” she wrote. “But that’s business, not communal leadership.”4
“THE CORRUPTION OF THE AMERICAN MIND: HOW CONCEALED FOREIGN FUNDING OF U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION PREDICTS EROSION OF DEMOCRATIC VALUES AND ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS ON CAMPUS.” NCRI. https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_The-Corruption-of-the-American-Mind.pdf.
“Over 75% of students dissatisfied with their university’s response to antisemitism.” Ynet News. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hk4o41br6.
“Palestinian kleptocracy: West accepts corruption, people suffer the consequences.” The Hill. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/306179-palestinian-kleptocracy-west-accepts-corruption-people.
“Replace American Jewish Communal Leadership.” Tablet. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/replace-american-jewish-communal-leadership-adl.
You need to also add the entire leadership of every major US Jewish organization to the resignation demand, not just Hillel and ADL. Many of us had been writing about the growing antisemitism on US campuses for over a decade and these groups did nothing, except call us illiberal- tell us we are fascist or right-wing (they did send us letters about the rate of intermarriage and how that is going to destroy the US Jewish community so give them money). Every last one of these legacy organizations are simply masses of toxic bullshit. If you can have the student government of Brandeis University refuse to condemn the Oct 7 massacres, because "it's complicated," you know that even the Jewish young in this country are totally fucked up.
As much as I hate to say it , as someone who graduated from CUNY, the most anti Israeli professors were Jewish. For someone as myself who grew up in Israel, it was difficult to understand. Many were profound leftists who for some reason totally disregarded the fact that it was the Soviet block which provided the Arab armies, whose war cry was to "drown the Jews in the Mediterranean, less then twenty years after the Holocaust, with billions of Dollars worth of weaponry to achieve that goal. It wasn't only the Six day war which didn't seem to impact their affinity for the leftist ideology , the Yom Kippur war intended to do the same, didn't seem to matter to them much either. Let's not forget that one of the Presidents who struggled with their approach how to deal with those calling for the genocide of Jews ,is also a Jew herself.