Where has all the good judgment gone?
Across much of the world, it seems that good judgment is quickly becoming a rare phenomenon.
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On October 7th, Eden Nimri found herself fighting for her and dozens of other female soldiers’ lives at a military post in Israel, as it was invaded by Palestinian terrorists.
Nimri’s instincts helped save 10 people, while she was killed in a battle with the terrorists. Just 22 years old, Nimri was a captain in the Sky Riders unit, whose soldiers are trained to fly drones that give ground forces an aerial overview of their surroundings.
The soldiers who were saved recounted Nimri’s final moments that Saturday. At 6:30 A.M., the soldiers awakened to the sounds of mortar rounds fired from Gaza. They ran to a portable bunker. Some 15 minutes later, with a report that terrorists had infiltrated the military post, Nimri placed four female fighters from her unit in position to be at the ready.
Almost none of the 30 spotters had weapons, so she stood at the entrance closest to where the terrorists entered, inserted a clip, and aimed her gun.
At 7:20 A.M., Nimri sent a picture to her team and to the entire company, showing that they were holding down this area. Fifteen minutes later, when the first terrorist arrived, rifle in hand, Nimri and the other fighters succeeded in dispatching him. The four fighters succeeded in rescuing six more spotters and sent them to a position to the rear, where all 10 of the female soldiers barricaded themselves in two rooms.
All the while, Nimri continued to wage battle with the terrorists, so her team could emerge unscathed. It was only on Monday, more than 48 hours after the massacre, that army representatives arrived to inform the family that their daughter had been killed.
In Israel, Nimri’s story is remarkable, but unsurprising. Soldiers are trained to make quick-witted decisions in real-time, and courage is a part of the country’s DNA. After all, wars waged against Israel since its declaration of independence in 1948 have necessarily sowed these seeds into the country’s soul.
Yet across much of the world, it seems that good judgment is quickly becoming a lost cause.
Last week at a U.S. congressional hearing, presidents from three of America’s top universities cowardly sidestepped questions about whether speech that encourages killing Jews is a violation of their campus policies.
One of the presidents has resigned since then, but another — Harvard’s Claudine Gay — had her support reaffirmed by the university’s board, meaning they forgive a leader who’s done nothing to slow down antisemitism within her jurisdiction.
“Harvard has sacrificed its academic integrity on the altar of intersectionality,” wrote Christopher Rufo, a New York Times bestselling author.
In another bizarre story of cowardice, one of these universities (MIT) canceled former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s campus speech about the Chinese Communist Party because it “risked offending” Chinese students.
Where has all the good judgment gone?
Jay Solomon, the Chief Advancement Officer for Hillel Ontario, contended that “the tools and resources we have to combat antisemitism (on college campuses) are diverse and numerous, as befits any serious, comprehensive, and effective strategy.”1
Does he mean the same tools and resources that have been unable to prevent skyrocketing levels of antisemitism? Or ones they’ve been hiding up until now?
Solomon then cited tactics “such as those developed through Hillel’s Campus Climate Initiative,” which “collaborates with higher education administrators to ensure a positive campus climate in which Jewish students feel comfortable.”
In other words, fighting antisemitism by working with people who allow speech that encourages killing Jews.
Where has all the good judgment gone?
Across the Atlantic, in England, critics say cops aren’t enforcing the law fairly. Cops say they are scared to.
British police departments are basically outsourcing their decision-making to activist-advisers counseling them on, say, how best to handle crowds of young, angry Muslims waving Palestinian flags and signs declaring: “We Are All Hezbollah.”2
Tim Cruddas, a former sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, believes current police officers are “obsessed with policing the internet and policing what people are putting on Twitter,” just not what happens on England’s streets.
Where has all the good judgment gone?
Suella Braverman, a British-Indian woman who married a Jewish man, was dismissed as England’s Home Secretary after she tried to stand up to police officers, alleging that they “play favorites when it comes to protesters” and are tougher on right-wing extremists than pro-Palestinian “mobs.”
At the same time, Kamala Harris, the U.S. vice president who also married a Jewish man, can’t seem to say the word “antisemitism” devoid of grouping it in the same sentence with Islamophobia.
About a month ago, amid soaring antisemitism in the U.S. against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, Harris found the gall to spiritlessly unveil an anti-Islamophobia strategy — just one day after the FBI director told senators that antisemitism is reaching “historic levels” in the U.S.
Where has all the good judgment gone?
While Hezbollah is launching cross-border attacks into Israel during its war with Hamas, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Eilat, and pro-Iranian militias are repeatedly shelling U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq.
“The absence of American responses to Iranian assaults guarantees that Tehran will keep pulling the trigger,” wrote Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. “In dealing with the ayatollahs, the U.S. made the same mistake that Israel made regarding Hamas, hoping that jihadis could be paid to abandon their vision of first regional and then global conquest.”3
Nor can the mere threat of massive retaliation, not backed by actual force, deter them. As professor Bernard Lewis said: “Mutually assured deterrence for the Iranian regime is not deterrence, but an incentive.”
All this, on top of Biden’s administration working persistently to renegotiate the Iranian nuclear deal, even appointing an avowedly pro-Iranian mediator in Robert Malley, after Donald Trump withdrew from it and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
“The Biden administration pledged to restore the Iranian nuclear deal, signaling to the Iranians that they no longer had anything to fear by grossly violating its terms,” wrote Oren. “If President Obama pledged to keep all options, including a military option, on the table, President Biden’s table held all possible options except the military.”
Where has all the good judgment gone?
Many people think that liberal immigration policies have imperiled “the West” — but this is only one side of the coin. These policies wouldn’t have turned out to be such a disaster if organized, effective immigration infrastructure enabled Western countries to adequately absorb and assimilate newcomers.
Historian Niall Ferguson said the failure has been in not explaining to immigrants “what the deal is if you come to a new society. You have to accept the norms, the laws of that society. And if you don’t, if your allegiance remains to some other power, then you’re not fulfilling your side of the implicit contract.”
For some strange reason, though, Western countries refuse to tell new immigrants that if you don’t get with the program, you don’t get to stay.
Where has all the good judgment gone?
Even with all the enlightenment and liberties that modern society claims, we are losing our grip on a fundamental pillar in the Western world — free speech. This has been the case for years, but confronting it ferments even more fear.
Is it really that difficult to differentiate between free speech, the fundamental democratic principle, and free speech, the amoral we’ll-attack-whoever-we-want ideology?
Where has all the good judgment gone?
A few weeks ago, on multiple calls with Jewish American communal professionals, some argued: “We need to hold space in the Jewish community for Jews who are struggling in this moment because they don’t support Israel.”
Do we?
Or do you, like me, agree with Alana Newhouse who wrote: “It seems to me this is an opportunity to bring clarity to what has been obscured, by answering charges like this one as directly as possible: ‘It is very important that we not misrepresent ourselves, because then these people will ultimately — rightly — feel gaslit. We are Zionists, and we believe that Zionism is central to our work. If this makes our spaces not right for certain people, we need — for their sakes and ours — for them to know it now.’”
Where has all the good judgment gone?
During this Chanukah, some American Jews are displaying watermelons next to their Menorah windows facing the street, to show that “while we are proud to be Jewish, we don’t support what is being done to Palestine.”4
It’s about time someone tells these misguided Jews that if it was not for Israel’s mere existence, Jews would be terrified with shaking knees to light Chanukah candles, let alone to display their Menorahs in windows facing the street.
Even the non-Jewish U.S. President Joe Biden, for all his administration’s wishy-washy reactions to Israel’s response in Gaza, had something to say about this, remarking just a few days ago: “Were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world that is safe.”
Where has all the good judgment gone?
“We need to say clearly that Hillel is the central address for Jewish campus life.” The Times of Israel. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-need-to-say-clearly-that-hillel-is-the-central-address-for-jewish-campus-life.
“British Police ‘Are Giving in to the Mob.’” The Free Press.
“The Iran Delusion.” The Free Press.
Too Much Context FreddyG on Twitter
Great article. The making room for the idiot pretend Jews portion bc they don’t like Israel, or whatever other nonsense, is like that a**hole from the U.N. telling Israelis that they need to think about the palestinian side bs. I agree with Allan’s Newhouse; grow up. How expletive, expletive stupid can you be? You’re Still this stupid, really? After October 7? I just don’t understand and I refuse to try to understand why we need to accommodate a bunch of expletive dumbass babies who live in some hippie bubble or anywhere but reality. We don’t have enough tears for what they did to our people that day, but we should make room for them stupid apologists who would make deals with our future murderers just so that they’re liked? Or that what, they’re the “good”ones? I’m so pissed off that we still, still have to deal with dumb Jews who won’t face reality. I’m ashamed of them.
Another spot on article on the insanity of an ideology in which logic has been overpowered by it. I just finished reading an article about a Reconstructionist rabbi who says it is important to look at both sides. This country has an entire group of "Jews" like her. It pains me to call them Jews but they are. I wondered if she knew that the Israeli peace activists in one of the kibbutz who befriended and gave jobs to Palestinians in their kibbutz were murdered by their "friends?" Or would it even matter to Jews like this rabbi because we must see their side? Albanese, a shill of the UN warned the US that the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians must be stopped with a ceasefire. My response to her is that if anyone knows about ethnic cleansing, it's the Arabs who were guilty of ethnic cleansing of the Jews in their Arab countries. I'm sure that slipped her mind. All that is happening now is pure Jew hatred. The question had been asked why the Jews didn't fight back during the Holocaust (some tried), and now that the Jews are fighting back, there's an uproar over it. No matter what the Jews do it will never satisfy the global hatred of them because as David Baddiel said, "Jews Don't Count" and Dara Horn, "People LIke Dead Jews." In my opinion, there won't be good judgment until hateful ideology ceases to exist and people choose to remain ignorant.