Israel’s ‘hardcore’ right, electoral corruption in New Jersey and more comments
Middle East Office: Israel’s “unconditional” right
The United Nations and President Biden claim that Israel’s right to self-defense must be balanced with the imperative to protect civilians, but that right is actually “unconditional.” declares Ben Bayer in New Ideal. The Allies in World War II knew this and “were able to completely subdue the Nazi regime, in part by killing more than six hundred thousand German civilians in strategic bombings.” Israel “should also unapologetically exercise its unconditional right to self-defense.” After all, your right to live should not “be compromised by the fact that someone who threatens to kill you has also taken hostage someone who might be hurt in their attempt to defend themselves.” There is no earthly reason to think the hostage deserves to live, but you don’t.
From the left: electoral corruption in Jersey
“Beneath the dramatic and operatic corruption described in the recent Menendez indictment lies what has been described as the soft corruption of the political machine in New Jersey.” warns David Dayen of The American Prospect. Many unelected county party chairs are endorsing Tammy Murphy, the governor’s wife, in the primary for Sen. Bob Menendez’s seat, securing her access to the “county ballot line,” which “groups candidates who count with the support of the county parties.” This has “the effect of putting a big thumb on the scale for Murphy”, with other candidates relegated to columns on the right, “a place sometimes nicknamed ‘Electoral Siberia’”. Rutgers researcher Julia Sass Rubin found that she makes a 38-point spread. The elections in Jersey “are not entirely democratic but are tribute payments to the party bosses.”
Former FBI Agent: Lessons from the JFK Assassination
The assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963 “brought justifiable scrutiny on the law enforcement agencies that should have prevented it, as well as those who investigated it.” reflects Thomas J. Baker in The Wall Street Journal. The investigation “devolved into a fiasco”: the FBI, “Secret Service, Dallas police and sheriff’s offices argued among themselves” about Lee Harvey Oswald, “the rifle and other evidence, witnesses and, most importantly, jurisdiction.” “Oswald’s mishandling allowed Jack Ruby to shoot the suspected presidential assassin in the basement of Dallas police headquarters,” adding “fuel to already hot conspiracy theories.”
From the right: the great Dutch victory of populism
“With almost all the votes counted,” Geert Wilders’ right-wing Freedom Party “has won 37 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, with 24 percent of the vote, defeating its closest rivals, a coalition of Labor Party”. and the green parties”, reports Spiked’s Fraser Myers. “These elections are both a victory for Wilders and a loss for the centrist establishment,” since “European elites would have said that a ‘sensitive’ country like the Netherlands was immune to populism.” The Labor-Green alliance was defeated, showing that “opposition to climate policy is now a major driver of European populism.” “Politicians who think they can get away with impoverishing their citizens, while hiding behind talk about Net Zero, are in for a very rude awakening.”
Cultural critic: RIP, Netflix queue
“I still remember my excitement that first time” that Netflix’s “red and white envelope” arrived in “my New York City mailbox like a gift waiting to be opened.” remember Andrew Trees in The Smart Set. Gone are the days “wandering the aisles of Blockbuster and debating whether to try a foreign movie someone vaguely remembers or just watch it.” die hard for the twelfth time.” Of course, this was before DVDs became “a quaint, dusty gramophone-like relic”; even what Netflix called its “queue” “smacked of some Victorian past in which every movie waited decorously in line to be seen.” He and his pregnant wife who was suffering from morning sickness “stumbled upon the original version of Bottom up (five years, sixty-eight episodes) and I finished it in less than a week.” Netflix has ended DVD deliveries, but still: “As the lights dim and the screen flickers,” “the promise of transcendence always seems within reach.”
– Compiled by The Post editorial board
