“See No Islamist Evil”

At a commemoration of the 35th anniversary of German reunification, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French president Emanuel Macron warned of right-wing threats to democracy.

“The obsession with the ‘far right’ among European elites has become a psychotic delusion,” Heather Mac Donald writes. Meantime, just days prior to the meeting between Merz and Macron, a man carried out an Islamist rampage against a British synagogue, and three suspected Hamas members were indicted for planning terror attacks in Germany. Neither Merz nor Macron mentioned these events.

“Wheresoever two or more members of the European elite gather together, they will denounce the ‘far right,’ right-wing ‘extremists,’ and ‘dangerous nationalists.’ They will ignore Islamist violence,” Mac Donald observes.

Read her essay in full here.

Two years after Hamas brutally slaughtered and abducted innocent Israelis, the war between the terror group and the Jewish state rages on. Support for Israel has declined over the last two years, with more Americans now believing false accusations of genocide, and with anti-Semitism rising on college campuses, in city streets, and online.

Fighting this hatred toward Jews won’t be accomplished by hate-speech laws or DEI programs or censorship, Christopher Rufo argues. “The right way to protect the civil rights of American Jews is to insist on equal protection under the law for all individuals, of whatever racial background, and to demand that the state fulfill its basic duty to protect life, liberty, and property,” he writes. “The right way to beat anti-Semitic conspiracy theories is not to silence those who peddle them but to counter their arguments with persuasive force.”

Read his analysis.

Charlie Kirk’s murder can be blamed on an unstable individual, but the broader reaction to the event is harder to explain, Martin Gurri writes. Teachers and nurses posted that Kirk got what he deserved; some Democratic leaders implicated President Trump as guilty in his death; and the media “played the role of institutional enabler in the progressive slide into barbarism,” Gurri observes. “The path back to a civilized society is long and uncertain, but we have no choice except to begin.”

Read his powerful essay here.

Since 2010, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been allowed to supervise nonbank entities that it believes are engaging in activity that could harm consumers.

“Its use of this authority entails the government inserting itself into a company’s internal workings to influence and shape behavior,” Jarrett Dieterle writes, “all without initiating formal proceedings that would require a higher burden of proof and empower a company more effectively to resist.”

In a welcome shift, the bureau recently unveiled a proposal that would limit this power. Read Dieterle’s assessment of how the move would cut back on the “shadow regulatory state.”

What does a university’s response to terror reveal about its values and its influence on society? On the two-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, Stu Smith, Neetu Arnold, Adam Lehodey, and Rafael Mangual reflect on national and global reactions to the attacks, especially on American university campuses. Their conversation explores the ideological influence of faculty and campus activism that blurred the line between academic freedom and lawlessness. They also consider how federal funding and institutional incentives shape university behavior.

“It used to be said that anti-Catholicism was the last acceptable prejudice in America. Those days ended on 10/7/23 when good old fashioned hatred of Jews became fashionable again.”

Photo credit: JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images