#WTH October 7 is so last year

Not just at Columbia. Also on Team Biden.

The antisemitic, pro-Hamas takeovers at college campuses around America are an outrage. The failure of university administrators to enforce the law and their own school regulations, or to exercise any semblance of reasonable judgment, are failures that will echo over decades. The inability of local law enforcement to curb threats to public safety, enforce hate crime laws, and end illegal encampments and gatherings is beyond infuriating. But let’s face it: Jews are the last remaining unprotected minority, America’s universities have become bastions of Marxist revanchism, and the weakness of law enforcement in the face of politically sensitive crime is legend.

Here’s the thing, though. We’re all here for a reason, right? We’re talking about Israel’s response to the attacks of October 7th. Encampments on college campuses are (nominally) about Israel’s “genocidal” response to October 7th; about Israel’s failure to take sufficient care of Gazans’ nutritional needs during the war against Hamas that began with October 7th; about “killing babies” and women indiscriminately during the conflict to rout out Hamas after October 7th. Right? Wrong. It’s as if October 7th never happened. And that erasure of history, that negation of fact, that wilful blotting out of the most serious attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust is what we need to talk about. Because it’s not just antisemites and ignorant kids and evil terrorist supporters and their enablers who are memory-holing this assault on the Jewish people. It’s those who are teaching your children. And it’s the Biden administration.

Let’s start with the repugnant “Open Letter from Faculty and Staff across the DC, Maryland, and Virginia Region.” Here’s a taste: “These protests are anchored in a clear moral compass in the face of Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza through mass killing, widespread destruction…” Hostages? Nah. October 7 attack? Nah. Read the whole thing… quoting from it makes me incandescently angry. These people are teaching your children. Think about it.

How bad has it gotten in the last few months? The President himself has been unable to condemn unequivocally and without moral relativism the outrages taking place on campuses. And his failure to do so has been noted by Hamas and Iran, who have both applauded student antisemites, and used the White House’s reticence to continually up the ante in negotiations over a cease-fire.

Meanwhile, over at the United States Agency for International Development, the foreign assistance and development arm of the federal government, excitement over the chance to realize long-standing antipathy towards Israel is reaching a fever pitch. Historically, AID has been the red-headed stepchild of U.S. national security, ignored by its more powerful siblings at the Department of State, and generally unable to influence the direction of policy. But the Israel-Hamas war has presented AID’s Israel-haters with a special opportunity, and the organization’s bureaucrats have been quick to seize it.

For years, and with more energy now, AID insists doggedly that UNRWA is doing a fine, stand-up job in Gaza, and is, indeed, “indispensable.” In reality, UNRWA has a long history of support for Hamas, Islamist extremism, and antisemitism. Other groups, even those that work with the United Nations, are less tainted, but apparently less beloved by AID’s taxpayer-funded bureaucrats. AID has eagerly leapt to the job of parroting Hamas propaganda regarding food deliveries to Gaza, warning of an impending Israeli-caused “famine,” while its leadership insists that addressing the reasons behind humanitarian woes in Gaza is not within its remit.

But now AID is in the catbird seat, poised to erase October 7, the casus belli, and deliver what it hopes will be the coup de grace to U.S. support for Israel: Rewind back to February 8 of this year, when, in another iteration of its desperate efforts to propitiate pro-Hamas voters, the White House issued a national security memo instructing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “obtain credible and reliable written assurances” from U.S. weapons recipients that they abide by international humanitarian law. While I am looking forward with tingling anticipation to Saudi Arabia’s response to this humanitarian diktat, we all know that the national security memo was an exercise in performance art designed to assuage leftie D concerns about “genocide Joe.” But I digress.

Well, lo and behold, AID has an opinion about Israeli adherence to international humanitarian law, Devex reports:

Israel is in violation of a White House directive requiring recipients of American military assistance to comply with international humanitarian law and permit the unimpeded delivery of U.S.-funded humanitarian support, USAID officials concluded in a confidential United States paper reviewed by Devex.

Color me gobsmacked. But there’s more:

In a submission to Blinken, USAID “assesses the government of Israel (GOI) does not currently demonstrate necessary compliance” with the memo’s requirement that it facilitate and not impede “the transport of delivery of United States humanitarian assistance” as well as U.S.-backed international efforts to provide relief.

The USAID paper also voiced “serious concerns that the killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the GOI itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilians, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law.” But it added that a final determination would be subject “to detailed analysis” by U.S. government lawyers. The current death toll has risen to over 34,000, according to U.N. estimates, which are based on figures compiled by Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Now, we are all too aware of where that 32,000 number comes from… Hamas. AID, like the President, uses it without qualification. And we are all too aware of why Israel cannot simply target Hamas — because the terror group operates without uniforms, in civilian areas, under schools and hospitals, indifferent to Palestinian civilian lives, and eager for just this sort of propaganda. But those facts are of little interest to AID. October 7? Eh, whatever.

Why is Israel in Gaza? To eliminate Hamas and release its hostages. Where is mention of those hostages in statements being made by AID about Gaza? When will the war stop? When the hostages are released and Hamas is brought to justice or eliminated. None of this would be happening without October 7. Never forget it.

PS Here’s some good news, a statement from the University of Florida about its own pro-Hamas protesters:

“This is not complicated: The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children — they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences. For many days, we have patiently told protesters — many of whom are outside agitators — that they were able to exercise their right to free speech and free assembly. And we also told them that clearly prohibited activities would result in a trespassing order from UPD (barring them from all university properties for three years) and an interim suspension from the university. For days UPD patiently and consistently reiterated the rules. Today, individuals who refused to comply were arrested after UPD gave multiple warnings and multiple opportunities to comply.”