I'm old enough to remember the aftermath of We Are the World, the simplistic, pretentious pop song written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson that purported to go a long way to end global hunger, beginning with Africa.
Netflix has a smash hit on its hands with The Greatest Night In Pop, a documentary that looks at the all-night studio session in Los Angeles after the Grammys in 1985 where 40 of the bigger names in music gathered. The backstage look and logistical nightmare of the undertaking is what makes the documentary much more fascinating than the result of the project itself, which raised around $80 million, far short of what it would take to actually feed the world.
A year after the project, promoter Ken Kragen, one of the co-founders of the We Are The World project, came up with a one-day event on Memorial Day Weekend, 1986. The May 25th celebration was called Hands Across America, and for $10 bucks, you, too, could insert yourself into what was hoped to be a human chain of hand-holders from coast to coast, all to continue to feed the world that was still hungry after Bob Dylan, Huey Lewis, and Dan Akroyd all hung out in a studio one night.
Hands Across America, you'll be surprised to recall, actually didn't span America. There were some gaps, much like the Southern border wall, all across the Southwest, because, well, it was a desert, it was hot, and there weren't any people there. But it was the thought that counts, right? Who could be against humanity holding hands as a show of solidarity?
I am, especially when it's done for the reasons we saw on college campuses all over the country, including most recently, Yale and Columbia. At Yale, ostensibly an elite school of education, this is what's going down these days.
That's right, after a chant of Viva, Viva, Palestina, the American flag is lowered and dropped to the ground, and then the crowd triumphantly cheers. One person there to counter protest was stabbed in the eye.
Here's what happened, in @TheFP:
— Sahar Tartak🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@sahar_tartak) April 22, 2024
"But last night, sitting in the hospital, I couldn’t help but think of my mother, Shahnaz, who grew up in Iran. Her neighbors threw rocks at her for being a Jew. She has a scar on her eyelid to this day." https://t.co/n4GN8aAETz
And that's the mild stuff. At Columbia, here's what the kids are up to instead of homework these days.
In case the lyrics to what's sure to be a number one hit with a bullet is a little too hard to pick out, here you go. This is what you're helping subsidize, being that Joe Biden has forgiven their student loan debt and added it your tab and mine.
Al-Qassam you make us proud! Take another soldier out!
We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!
Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!
Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight!
It is right to rebel, Al-Qassam, give them hell!
It is right to rebel, Hamas give them hell!
Free, free, free Palestine!"
One Jewish person there to retrieve his daughter who no longer felt safe on campus was told, as he was fleeing the campus of Columbia University, to go back to Poland.
Here's what happened, in @TheFP:
— Sahar Tartak🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@sahar_tartak) April 22, 2024
"But last night, sitting in the hospital, I couldn’t help but think of my mother, Shahnaz, who grew up in Iran. Her neighbors threw rocks at her for being a Jew. She has a scar on her eyelid to this day." https://t.co/n4GN8aAETz
Here's the account of that father rescuing his Jewish daughter from an elite American university.
I just got sent this from a Columbia chat: pic.twitter.com/xpndY9ng0E
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 21, 2024
It would be horrific if it's just happening on those two campuses. It's worse. At Ohio State, students there have moved on from the interstate rivalry with that school up north. They're now wanting to get rid of the Jews.
Students at Ohio State University call for Jewish students to be thrown out.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 20, 2024
“The Zionists have got to go.”
pic.twitter.com/yhSDHyBOUp
At Northwestern, this is what's going on.
Northwestern University- students call for the erasure of the world’s only Jewish state.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) April 22, 2024
“Hey hey ho ho Israel has got to go”.
Such calls are deemed antisemitic per the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Every student participating should be investigated for violating the… pic.twitter.com/DVwvZfDp7j
Back at Columbia, the Rabbi of the Jewish Synagogue on campus told the 290-plus students that attend that the campus is no longer safe for them, and they should return home for the foreseeable future. Here's Jake Tapper of CNN with that news.
In response to “horrific” scenes of antisemitic harassment at and around campus, the Orthodox Rabbi at Columbia/Barnard sent a WhatsApp message to more than 290+ Jewish students this morning recommending that they go home until it’s safe again for them on campus: pic.twitter.com/uqAntEICLv
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 21, 2024
Meanwhile, on campus at the encampment the anti-Semites have set up, this weird chant about the Hands Across America (to block the Jews) stunt was repeated over and over.
At Yale, the anti-Semites there actually put it into practice against a Chassidic Jewish student.
If you're ignorant about history, we've actually seen this particular stunt to prevent Jews access to stuff before.
Nazis block Jews from entering the University of Vienna. Austria, 1938. https://t.co/CNzmGmBLQV pic.twitter.com/GcYiyQpVzZ
— Blake Flayton (@blakeflayton) April 22, 2024
All things old are new again. Anti-Semites are back to linking arms to lock the Jews out of school. You'd think the president of the United States might be in a unique position, possessing the bully pulpit and all, to speak out and condemn this nonsense that's spinning out of control all over the country. I mean, Joe Biden has had no problems whatsoever slandering Donald Trump and perverting what happened in Charlottesville, claiming that his predecessor called the white supremacists there "some good people that were there". That's not what Trump said or meant. He condemned the bigots, and was commenting on normal Americans that also showed up to take part in the rally. Trump was nothing that not all people there at that rally were white supremacists. That's factually true.
Despite what actually happened there, Biden continues to hang onto the lie every chance he can. Here's just the most recent of dozens of times Biden has got the story all wrong.
Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden's moronic press secretary, repeated the lie last week.
Regardless of the lack of veracity in Biden's words, the subject matter, at least theoretically, is something about which the president feels compelled to opine whenever he can. So does he naturally address it when it's originating from people residing on his side of the ideological spectrum? Of course not. He has people for that.
.@POTUS: "The ancient story of persecution against Jews in the Haggadah also reminds us that we must speak out against the alarming surge of Antisemitism – in our schools, communities, and online. Silence is complicity." https://t.co/TfpH2IEvHf
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) April 21, 2024
Silence is indeed complicity. Biden's silence on the subject speaks volumes. On Charlottesville, in trying to tie Donald Trump and the Republicans to white supremacists, Biden is Chatty Cathy. These students? Again, thanks to you and me, and Joe Biden's unconstitutional actions to release them from the financial contracts signed in order to enroll at these "elite" institutions, these protesters are in the wheelhouse of Biden's pandering debt amnesty plan. These are the people he's counting on as a voting bloc.
Even though we're seeing the ancient evil resurging in this country, what Israel must do in the Middle East is proceeding, regardless if the rest of the world is on board or not. The battle of Rafah apparently has begun at least the overture, if not the full first act.
Looks like Rafah is getting started. Hamas can still surrender. pic.twitter.com/EGC84RCgcg
— Jewish Lumber King 🇺🇲🌳🇮🇱 (@EzraDrissman) April 21, 2024
My good friend, John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting, is wrapping up his spring tour with a four-piece string quartet, and I'm going to go see closing night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. He's had a remarkable couple of weeks, traveling to Israel and performing in Hostage Square in the middle of Jerusalem for the families of loved ones still held hostage by Hamas Nazis about which our college kids seem so enamored.
One of the songs he performed, after addressing the crowd and reassuring them that the vast majority of Americans support Israel, and that this country is not represented by the anti-Jewish hate on display on campuses, was his latest song, OK. It's more relevant now than when he wrote it in the days immediately following the October 7th attack.
Humbled to perform "OK (We Are Not OK)" at Hostage Square, in Tel Aviv, hours before Iran's attack on Israel. There are no words to express the meetings I had with hostage families. May we hold them in our hearts as well as all innocents suffering due to the evil that is Hamas. pic.twitter.com/pq9K6auLyO
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) April 21, 2024
We learned over the weekend that the Department of Education has launched investigations into reports of anti-Semitism on the campuses of a stunning 45 universities. David Burge, @IowaHawkBlog on Twitter/X, has the stats.
Literally sickening. 5/8 Ivy League schools, 9/14 current (and 11/18 Fall 2024) Big Ten. Hats off to the SEC, with 0/16.https://t.co/pEUn3TJrns
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 21, 2024
Ondrasik is right. We are definitely not OK.
