https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/you-have-to-read-this-letter

Please read the original post at the link above.

Published by Bari Weiss, April, 16 2020. Thank you Ms. Weiss and thank you Mr. Gutmann.

I am copying this here to preserve it. I expect the original will be cancelled.

You Have to Read This Letter

A New York father pulls his daughter out of Brearley with a message to the whole school. Is the dam starting to break?

I was planning to publish a roundup today of the many thoughtful responses to Paul Rossi’s essay. I’m going to save that post for Sunday, because I was just sent this letter that has my jaw on the floor. It was written by a Brearley parent named Andrew Gutmann.

If you don’t know about Brearley, it’s a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It costs $54,000 a year and prospective families apparently have to take an “anti-racism pledge” to be considered for admission. (In the course of my reporting for this piece I spoke to a few Brearley parents.)

Gutmann chose to pull his daughter, who has been in the school since kindergarten, and sent this missive to all 600 or so families in the school earlier this week. Among the lines:

If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

I’m pasting the whole thing below.

Meantime, I’m going to ask Andrew Gutmann to join Paul Rossi and me for our subscriber-only conversation this coming Tuesday night. I hope he’ll join. Details about that event will be in Sunday’s post.

I promise: this newsletter won’t be exclusively about education. But my gosh is it a wild right story to follow right now. . .

See you Sunday.

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April 13, 2021 

Dear Fellow Brearley Parents, 

Our family recently made the decision not to reenroll our daughter at Brearley for the 2021-22 school year. She has been at Brearley for seven years, beginning in kindergarten. In short, we no longer believe that Brearley’s administration and Board of Trustees have any of our children’s best interests at heart. Moreover, we no longer have confidence that our daughter will receive the quality of education necessary to further her development into a critically thinking, responsible, enlightened, and civic minded adult. I write to you, as a fellow parent, to share our reasons for leaving the Brearley community but also to urge you to act before the damage to the school, to its community, and to your own child’s education is irreparable. 

It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley’s antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the criticisms that I know other parents have expressed. 

I object to the view that I should be judged by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died. 

I object to the charge of systemic racism in this country, and at our school. Systemic racism, properly understood, is segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of Japanese and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small number of isolated incidences over a period of decades. Ask any girl, of any race, if they have ever experienced insults from friends, have ever felt slighted by teachers or have ever suffered the occasional injustice from a school at which they have spent up to 13 years of their life, and you are bound to hear grievances, some petty, some not. We have not had systemic racism against Blacks in this country since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, a period of more than 50 years. To state otherwise is a flat-out misrepresentation of our country’s history and adds no understanding to any of today’s societal issues. If anything, longstanding and widespread policies such as affirmative action, point in precisely the opposite direction. 

I object to a definition of systemic racism, apparently supported by Brearley, that any educational, professional, or societal outcome where Blacks are underrepresented is prima facie evidence of the aforementioned systemic racism, or of white supremacy and oppression. Facile and unsupported beliefs such as these are the polar opposite to the intellectual and scientific truth for which Brearley claims to stand. Furthermore, I call bullshit on Brearley’s oft-stated assertion that the school welcomes and encourages the truly difficult and uncomfortable conversations regarding race and the roots of racial discrepancies. 

I object to the idea that Blacks are unable to succeed in this country without aid from government or from whites. Brearley, by adopting critical race theory, is advocating the abhorrent viewpoint that Blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims, and are incapable of success regardless of their skills, talents, or hard work. What Brearley is teaching our children is precisely the true and correct definition of racism. 

I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners. They are an insult to parents and unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley’s caliber. 

I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors. 

l object to Brearley’s advocacy for groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti family, heterophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither speaks for the majority of the Black community in this country, nor in any way, shape or form, represents their best interests. 

I object to, as we have been told time and time again over the past year, that the school’s first priority is the safety of our children. For goodness sake, Brearley is a school, not a hospital! The number one priority of a school has always been, and always will be, education. Brearley’s misguided priorities exemplify both the safety culture and “cover-your-ass” culture that together have proved so toxic to our society and have so damaged the mental health and resiliency of two generations of children, and counting. 

I object to the gutting of the history, civics, and classical literature curriculums. I object to the censorship of books that have been taught for generations because they contain dated language potentially offensive to the thin-skinned and hypersensitive (something that has already happened in my daughter’s 4th grade class). I object to the lowering of standards for the admission of students and for the hiring of teachers. I object to the erosion of rigor in classwork and the escalation of grade inflation. Any parent with eyes open can foresee these inevitabilities should antiracism initiatives be allowed to persist. 

We have today in our country, from both political parties, and at all levels of government, the most unwise and unvirtuous leaders in our nation’s history. Schools like Brearley are supposed to be the training grounds for those leaders. Our nation will not survive a generation of leadership even more poorly educated than we have now, nor will we survive a generation of students taught to hate its own country and despise its history. 

Lastly, I object, with as strong a sentiment as possible, that Brearley has begun to teach what to think, instead of how to think. I object that the school is now fostering an environment where our daughters, and our daughters’ teachers, are afraid to speak their minds in class for fear of “consequences.” I object that Brearley is trying to usurp the role of parents in teaching morality, and bullying parents to adopt that false morality at home. I object that Brearley is fostering a divisive community where families of different races, which until recently were part of the same community, are now segregated into two. These are the reasons why we can no longer send our daughter to Brearley. 

Over the past several months, I have personally spoken to many Brearley parents as well as parents of children at peer institutions. It is abundantly clear that the majority of parents believe that Brearley’s antiracism policies are misguided, divisive, counterproductive and cancerous. Many believe, as I do, that these policies will ultimately destroy what was until recently, a wonderful educational institution. But as I am sure will come as no surprise to you, given the insidious cancel culture that has of late permeated our society, most parents are too fearful to speak up. 

But speak up you must. There is strength in numbers and I assure you, the numbers are there. Contact the administration and the Board of Trustees and demand an end to the destructive and anti-intellectual claptrap known as antiracism. And if changes are not forthcoming then demand new leadership. For the sake of our community, our city, our country and most of all, our children, silence is no longer an option. 

Respectfully,

Andrew Gutmann

Commenting has been turned off for this post

Brian SackApr 16 This is a masterpiece, and I want to buy this man a drink.

Claire PotterApr 17 Nobody forces you to send your child to private school–you don’t like it, send your kid to public school.

131 replies532 more comments…See all

https://www.justfacts.com/news_2020_survey_voter_knowledge#results

Hat tip to WUWT (Watts Up With That.) https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/16/scientific-survey-shows-voters-across-the-political-spectrum-are-ideologically-deluded/

Victor Davis Hanson

Posted: Apr 15, 2021 11:15 AM

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2021/04/15/how-to-start-a-war-n2587985?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=04/15/2021&bcid=2404bdf18b42635f0a604503a5ab8c61&recip=27342845

Republicans prior to and during the civil war were anti-slavers (abolitionists).

Ending slavery was the primary reason the Republican Party, known as the GOP or Grand Old Party, was founded. Among many other despicable Democrat actions, a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives beat senseless a Republican Senator while the Senator was speaking on the floor of the U.S Senate against slavery, an injury from which the GOP Senator never recovered. But the problem today is not about a political party. The problem is the government has lost the trust of the people they are duty bound to serve.

There are two political parties in the USA, the Democrat party or DNC and the Republican party or RNC. They have proven by their actions and inaction that the difference between them today is inconsequential. Neither party is capable or interested in doing the right thing for the people. The two parties are fighting each other about control and power of the purse strings of the U.S. government, which in their minds permits any action or words no matter how immoral to get themselves re-elected. The end justifies the means, and they are the ones we have been waiting for, or so they believe.

The de-facto opposing party, the real opposition, is “We the People” and so far we are unorganized, but much, much larger in numbers. We see Democrats and Republicans hiding behind barricades and wire fences surrounding Washington, D.C. and armed National Guard troops. They are protecting themselves against the people who object to the crisis and result that Democrats and Republicans created. Democrats and Republicans are displaying their weakness to the world.

We the People must be concerned by the weakness of Democrats and Republicans. There is a solid argument that a time of weakness such as this is a good time for the people to reform their government, whether by term limits, Constitutional Convention or by revolution. The Declaration and Constitution were written when the colonies were under attack, not in a time of peace and tranquility. Today however, foreign governments already see the weakness and they are already moving troops, ships and cyber assets to exploit that weakness.

Democrats take America into major wars. Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War. Democrats are authoritarian. It must be their way, or there will be a fight or total appeasement. The hard work of deal making is not the Democrat way. Their way is the only right way and their end justifies the means. Customers refuse such authoritarian deals and dealers and instead become enemies. Democrats and Republicans do not hesitate to instigate wars between two other countries or overthrow other governments; they are proud of doing that and write books about it, laugh about it, thinking they are Machiavelli playing on a grand chessboard. “We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton and her cronies laughed. And then they are angry and overreact when inevitably an opponent uses that tactic.

The puppet Biden regime is in place only 4 months and China is ready for war against Taiwan, and Taiwan expects via expired treaty that U.S. and allies will come to their aid, while Russia is ready for war against Ukraine, and Ukraine expects U.S. and NATO will come to their aid. Iran – encouraged by Biden regime appeasement and desire to renew the Obama Kerry nuke treaty that Iran never signed – now has done a deal with China intended to prevent Israel or anyone else from destroying Iran’s nuclear capability.  Also, it is no surprise Iran is threatening Israel since Palestine rebels, though repulsed by Islam nations, are again receiving U.S. funding with which they compensate the families of suicide bombers and murderers. You cannot fix stupid.

Meanwhile, the puppet Joe Biden who is responsible for this mess has difficulty stringing three words together. After illicitly taking office due to cyber warfare executed by foreigners against Americans in the 2020 election … and the entire world, friends and enemies know that …the puppet Biden regime is a real national security risk, arguably a world security risk.

An honest President and Congress and Supreme Court would have immediately investigated the 2020 election and accepted the consequences. But each turned their back on the people after going along with two impeachments of President Trump based on far less evidence, and after investigations of the 2016 U.S. elections revealed election systems in all 50 states were attached to the internet and many were hacked.

It would be obvious to a legitimate President and Congress that neither have the political backing to fight two or three foreign wars. The Biden-caused renewed and ongoing invasion of illegal aliens into the U.S. while trying to lockdown the people by a pandemic scheme further erodes trust in government.

The U.S. federal government has lost the respect of the people, and lost the respect of several big state governments, and many foreign governments. The people will not fight the Democrat wars ahead and our foreign opponents know that. By all appearances, the puppet Biden regime is working to defeat America and bring us to our knees while Republicans are diddling themselves in their own sandbox.

Eventually, there will be a unified mindset among the people for no taxation without real representation. The government will have to step down or else it will be taken down. It is not a threat, it is a prediction based on history. The rules of checkers do not change.

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Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections. One hour thirty minute high quality documentary on the cyber corruption of the 2016 U.S. election including comments and testimony by Democrats prior to the 2020 election acknowledging that the election interference by foreign entities and that voting machines are attached to the internet and easily hacked.

Democrats have led America and its allies into WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, etc. Beware! Beware!

And now they are leading us into financial war.

Be Prepared!

Imagine this scenario,

A completely healthy healthcare worker injects something experimental and dies the next day.

A normal person with some intelligence can figure out what happened but somehow the autopsy shows nothing had to with the experimental injection and the death certificate goes off as due to natural causes.

In this scenario, it is not about proving the cause of death which any idiot on this planet can figure out on its own. I think instead what one should do is to start questioning the structure that is place and expose it.

There are questions you can ask that will shake the corrupt structure such as who are these people in these positions? Who hired them? Are these people following orders? Why? Who is in charge? Brown envelopes exchanged?

These are few of the questions to be asked in Social media, around the dinner table, when talking with your friends, when you see a your local law enforcement.

These are questions that demand answers.

Once in open it will be easier to root out these feckers. Because honestly, the problem is not the injection that killed the health care worker, it is the people behind it covering it up. And as long as these idiots think they get away with it you will not see any change.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elias-sare-b69a7a64/https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elias-sare-b69a7a64_imagine-this-scenario-a-completely-healthy-activity-6780071880025014273-v6bB/

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Ron Pavellas

“… I love you with all my heart, and pray for the continuance of your life until you should be tired of it yourself.”

Thus ends the letter of 15 August 1820 from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, the men having achieved, respectively, the ages of 77 and 85. They had not quite another six years to live and died on the same day, exactly 50 years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

Jefferson’s effusive salutation is remarkable in two ways, at least. Jefferson was ever the withdrawn, introverted, land wealthy (and cash poor) statesman of both the Colony and the State of Virginia who usually wrote from his head after much deliberation; whereas, Adams was the loquacious, argumentative and extroverted farmer-lawyer of Massachusetts who wrote from the heart quite freely.

Also, the depth of their affection for each other this late in their lives belies the severe break in relations that resulted in a hiatus of over eight years in their correspondence, between 1804 and 1812.

“…we ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.”—Jefferson to Adams

This is my second writing about the treasure these men left us in their letters between years 1777 and 1826. My article of 3 February 2010 covered the letters in a general way. Today’s article presents what both saw as an enemy of a democratic republic, the aristocracy, but they never fully agreed on a remedy or how to prevent its ascendancy.

They first discussed this subject while both were diplomats; Adams represented the new United States of America in London (1785 -1788) and Jefferson, similarly, in Paris (1784 – 1789). Jefferson visited Adams at the British Embassy of the USA, commonly called, then and now, Grosvenor Square, London.

(From JA to TJ, 1 Mar 1787): A work upon the subject you mention, nobility in general [i.e., the aristocracy], which I once hinted to you a wish to see handled at large would… require many books which I have not, and a more critical knowledge both of ancient and modern languages than at my age a man can aspire to. There are but two circumstances, which will be regretted by me, when I leave Europe. One is the opportunity of searching any questions of this kind, in any books [in England and France] that may be wanted, and the other will be the interruption of that intimate correspondence with you, which is one of the most agreeable events in my life.

Twenty-six years later, the two began an intense correspondence on the subject that lasted one and one-half years.

(JA to TJ, 9 July 1813): I recollect, near 30 years ago to have said carelessly to you, that I wished I could find time and means to write something upon aristocracy…I soon began, and have been writing upon that subject ever since…Your “άριστοι” [“aristoi—aristocrats”] are the most difficult animals to manage…They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own subtle industry and courage, but they employ the commonality, to knock to pieces every plan and model that the most honest architects in legislation can invent to keep them within bounds…But who are these “άριστοι”? Who shall judge? Who shall select these choice spirits from the rest of the congregation? Themselves? We must first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the congregation choose? Ask Xenophon…[who] says that the ecclesia [popular assembly] always chooses the worst men they can find because none others will do their dirty work. This wicked motive is worse than birth or wealth.

Here I want to quote Greek again…[from] a collection of moral sentences from all the most ancient Greek poets. In one.. [is] a couplet the sense of which was “Nobility in men is worth as much as it is in horses, assess, or rams: but the meanest blooded puppy in the world, if he begets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them.” Yet birth and wealth together have prevailed over virtue and talents in all ages. The many will acknowledge no other “άριστοι”.

“Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me as well founded.”—Adams to Jefferson

So began five letters from Adams to Jefferson before the latter sent a lengthy and famous response to Adams on the subject of the aristocracy, after which Adams wrote a final letter, the beginning of which states: “We are now explicitly agreed, in one important point, viz. that ‘there is a natural aristocracy among men, the grounds of which are virtue and talents.’ ”

But where did they differ? This will be discussed, further below.

First, we must look at what these men meant by The Aristoi, an ancient Greek construction with which they were familiar as scholars in the writings and philosophies of that time. Immediately below are excerpts from two sources to give us a grounding in what these men were discussing.

Arete and the Aristoi

Arete…means goodness, excellence, or virtue of any kind. In its earliest appearance in Greek, this notion of excellence was ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function: the act of living up to one’s full potential. Arete in ancient Greek culture was courage and strength in the face of adversity and it was to what all people aspired. [Source]

The concept of arete, or excellence, was one of the Homeric Age’s most important contributions to Western culture…(T)he nobility is the prime mover in forming a nation’s culture, and…the aristoi, or “the best,” are responsible for the creation of a definite idea of human perfection, an ideal toward which they are constantly educated. Arete became the “quintessence of early aristocratic education,” and thereafter the dominant concept in all Greek education and culture; it has remained with us as an educational ideal ever since.

It was not possible to separate leadership from arete, the Greeks believed, because unusual or exceptional prowess was a natural manifestation of leadership. Since each man was ranked in accordance with his ability, arete became an ideal of self-fulfillment or self-realization in terms of human excellence. A noble’s arete, in Homer, is specifically indicated by his skill and prowess as a soldier in war, and as an athlete in peace. War provides the occasion for the display of arete and the winning of kleos, or glory. The aristoi compete among themselves “always to be the best and to be superior to others.” [Source: thinkquest]

Definitions of Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy in Modern Times, from a paper by Paul Lucardie, then at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, to give us a current context in which to understand our subject  [Please click on the table to be able to read it]:

 

Please Click for Clarity

The Letters Between Adams and Jefferson on the Aristocracy

Adams wrote to Jefferson on 2 September 1813: “The five pillars of aristocracy are beauty, wealth, birth, genius and virtues. Any one of the first three can at any time overbear any one or both of the two last,” and goes on to give historical and contemporary examples.

Jefferson counters that he has faith in the enlightenment of men through science, and in the well-functioning democratic principles and machinery they and their fellow writers of the U.S. Constitution established, especially regarding regular elections:

Science is progressive, and talents and enterprise on the alert. Resort may be had to the people of the country, a more governable power from their principles and subordination; and rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance… (I)f the moral and physical conditions of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government, with the recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he mediates may become irredeemable.

The mostly formal style of their writing (Adams occasionally lapsed into a more familiar style) sometimes masks, for the modern eye, the fundamental disagreement between these statesmen on the issue. Adams was the Federalist, perceiving a strong federal (i.e., central) government as necessary to “control” the natural appetites of man toward power and privilege. He had no confidence that those with natural born talent (sometimes called “genius”)  and “virtues,” derived through family traits and education, who ascended as “natural aristocracy” would not become as corrupt as those who ascended through wealth, beauty or name–the latter group being the “tinsel aristocracy” as described by Jefferson.

Obituary for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (source: /media.photobucket.com)

Jefferson had faith in the common sense of the ordinary citizen to vote out the misbehaving elected officials before they could do irreparable damage. Further, he did not place as much importance on the doings of the central government, observing that the limitless frontier then offered by America made the enterprising man relatively independent of the aristocratic tendencies of those in power in the country’s capital.

[The text is not edited to conform with modern English usage] With respect to Aristocracy, we should further consider that, before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to History but the Man of the old world, crouded within limits either small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A government adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different one that for the Man of these states. Here every one may have land to labor for himself if he chuses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but where-with to provide for a cessation from labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholsome controul over their public affairs…

What is unstated by Jefferson in this correspondence is his underlying acceptance, perhaps even approval, of the occasional revolution to cleanse the ruling elite. Jefferson was enthusiastic about the French Revolution to which he was a direct witness, although he acknowledged that its latter stages went to bloody excess. This was a point of contention and public controversy between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans in the election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson.

Jefferson famously wrote from Paris to William S. Smith on 13 November 1787:

We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

There is much reference these days to the thoughts and intentions of the “founding fathers.” I suggest a reading of these letters would help us all truly understand where the founders stood on issues of freedom and liberty, government and democracy.

You can see all the letters (to everyone) of Thomas Jefferson here.

Ron’s bog is here. Trust me, it is better in the original with pictures in place and all of that. Go there:

https://pavellas.com/2010/05/17/democratic-republicanism-vs-%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B9-the-aristocracy/?replytocom=29598

Biden State Department Claims It’s ‘Historical Fact’ That Israel Occupied ‘Palestinian Territories’ in 1967

Robert Spencer Apr 08, 2021 8:48 AM ET in PJMedia.com

According to a Thursday report in Al-Monitor, Biden State Department wonk Ned Price claimed at a press conference: “It is a historical fact that Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights after the 1967 war.” Price thus signaled once again that Biden’s handlers plan to take up the Obama administration’s betrayal of Israel and support for the Palestinian jihad in a big way. But the central claim is wrong: contrary to the propaganda that inundates the world every day, Israel did not occupy “Palestinian Territories” in 1967 or at any other time.

Price and his colleagues in the Biden State Department don’t know, or don’t want you to know, that the “West Bank” (that is, Judea and Samaria) and Gaza were part of the original post-World War I Mandate for Palestine, set aside for a Jewish national home. Not only that, but between 1949 and 1967, when they were under Jordanian and Egyptian rule, nothing was ever said about how they were occupied “Palestinian” territory; in fact, there was no mention made of the “Palestinians” at all, as they were not invented until the 1960s, as a rhetorical stick to beat Israel with. After the 1967 war, Israel was occupying land to which only Israel, among all the countries of the world, had any legal claim. Find out more about this in The Palestinian Delusion.

Palestinian spokesmen have again and again made it clear that the Qur’an and Islam in general, not quarrels over various patches of land or occupation or settlements, are what make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intractable. A Qatari sheikh, Muhammad Al-Muraikhi, stated this plainly on Qatar TV back on January 9, 2009. “We do not treat the Jews as our enemies just because they occupied Palestine,” he explained, “or because they occupied a precious part of our Arab and Islamic world. We will treat the Jews as our enemies even if they return Palestine to us because they are infidels. They rejected Allah and His messengers.”

An Egyptian imam, Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub, declared eight days after that in a televised sermon that Muslim hatred of Jews had nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with the Qur’an:

If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels—not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: “The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.” [Qur’an 9:30] It is Allah who said that they are infidels.

Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: “You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers to be the Jews and the polytheists.” [Qur’an 5:82] Third, you must believe that the Jews will never stop fighting and killing us. They [fight] not for the sake of land and security, as they claim, but for the sake of their religion: “And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back [from] your religion, if they can.” [Qur’an 2:217] This is it. We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle—and this is the fourth point. You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth.

Ya’qoub’s peroration was just as chilling:

As for you Jews—the curse of Allah upon you. The curse of Allah upon you, whose ancestors were apes and pigs. You Jews have sown hatred in our hearts, and we have bequeathed it to our children and grandchildren. You will not survive as long as a single one of us remains.

Also on Egyptian television on the same day, January 17, 2009, two other Muslim clerics, Sheik Said Al-Afani and Sheik Muhammad Abd Al-Salam, reiterated that the war against Israel was all about Islamic imperatives. The Jews, said Al-Afani, “are the accursed people, who incurred the wrath of Allah. They are the offspring of snakes and vipers, the slayers of our Prophet Muhammad, whose death was a consequence of his being poisoned by a Jewish woman.”

Contradicting the accepted wisdom in the West, he continued: “Our hatred of them is purely on religious grounds, and not because of the pure, sacred land, which was blessed by Allah, or because of Gaza…not only because of Al-Aqsa and so on. We hate them, first and foremost, because of their enmity towards Allah, and because they slayed our prophets.”

Then Muhammad Abd Al-Salam added: “Let me clarify that it is our duty to hate them, as part of our faith.” To this Al-Afani readily agreed. Al-Salam explained: “People have become confused about this. Some think that it is a territorial or a national issue, or that it has to do with the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the issue is much broader—it is a matter of faith. We are obligated to hate them because they are a murderous people, and the enemies of all that is good and of Islam.”

On October 5, 2018, on Not a Neighbor, a program on official Palestinian Authority television, Sharia judge Muhannad Abu Rumi likewise denounced the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about territory and could thus be subject to negotiations:

People could be deluded or think…that we have no way out with the Jews…. The liberation of this land is a matter of faith, which will happen despite everyone. The Jews leaving this land is a divine decree…. The war is not only over this strip of land, as you all know the Jews want everything and not just a part. They want to subjugate us, and that we be slaves to their command…

A week later, during a Friday sermon at the Islamic Center of South Florida, Imam Hasan Sabri offered a succinct encapsulation of the principle of “Drive them out from where they drove you out” (Qur’an 2:191): “If a land is occupied or plundered, it should be liberated from its occupiers and plunderers, even if this leads to the martyrdom of tens of millions of Muslims.”

Turning to Trump’s offer to the Palestinians, “the Deal of the Century,” Sabri ridiculed the very idea of negotiations: “Take the Palestinian cause, for example. It is not being plotted against with a deal they call ‘the Deal of the Century.’ Why do they call it a ‘deal’? Because whoever is involved in this treason is not a man of principles. These are peddlers, not men with a cause. All they want are positions and jobs. That is why for them, the cause is nothing but a deal, a matter of give and take. For them, it is nothing but a deal.”

To this, Sabri contrasted the “position of a believing Muslim about the Palestinian cause,” which he characterized in this way: “That Palestine in its entirety is Islamic land, and there is no difference between what was occupied in 1948 and 1967. There is no difference between this village or that village, this city or that city. All of it is Islamic waqf land that was occupied by force. The responsibility for it lies with the entire Islamic nation, and the [Palestinians] should benefit from this land. If a land is occupied or plundered, it should be liberated from the occupiers and plunderers, even if this leads to the martyrdom of tens of millions of Muslims. This is the ruling, and there is no room for discussion or concessions.”

Another imam told a Muslim audience in November 2018 that while the struggle against Israel is an Islamic cause, this is best kept hidden for public relations purposes. At a “Workshop for Palestine” hosted by American Muslims for Palestine at the Islamic Center of Union County, New Jersey (ICUCNJ), on November 17, 2018, ICUCNJ Imam Sa’id Elkasaby explained: “Although our cause is Islamic, when we market and present it to people, I believe that it should be presented as a ‘humanitarian cause.’ If I talk to Jews and tell them that my cause is Islamic, they’re out. It’s over. They won’t support me because they’re Jews and I’m a Muslim. The same is true when I tell a Christian that my cause is Islamic. When I tell him that my cause is humanitarian, it means that every human being must acknowledge that truth. I know that I have the right to Palestine, but I want to be supported by everybody—by the Muslims, the Christians, the Chinese, the Sikhs, and the nonreligious. They will all support my cause because all humans will support my cause. I am a human being. I have rights. I own a land. So I present this cause to people…. If we keep telling the Americans that our cause is Islamic, only the Muslims will support us. The non-Muslims will not support us. So I want to generalize the cause so everybody will sympathize with us.”

And here we are. “Palestinians” and their allies told Biden, Price, and the rest that their land was “occupied,” and that all that was involved was a simple land dispute, and they credulously believed. Mission accomplished. The Palestinians’ befuddled American benefactors will start writing checks shortly.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster.

Read more by Robert Spencer

The original article:

https://pjmedia.com/columns/robert-spencer/2021/04/08/biden-state-department-claims-its-historical-fact-that-israel-occupied-palestinian-territories-in-1967-n1438411?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=2404bdf18b42635f0a604503a5ab8c61&recip=27342845

29 minute video lecture recorded from live zoom call 31 March 2021 including his slides.

Link to watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GD8SXP02h4c

Quote from Professor Richard’s Lindzen’s zoom lecture on Wednesday

Quote from Professor Richard’s Lindzen’s zoom lecture on Wednesday

Quote from Professor Richard’s Lindzen’s zoom lecture on Wednesday

Quote from Professor Richard’s Lindzen’s zoom lecture on Wednesday

Quote from Professor Richard’s Lindzen’s zoom lecture on Wednesday