Iran, Columbia, Cuomo, Biden, Oh My!

By David M. Friend

Hello everyone.

I really wanted to write about Iran, Columbia University and Andrew Cuomo, and I will, but like a moth to a flame, I am compelled to also write about Joe Biden and the events surrounding his candidacy that exploded this week.

First, Iran.

No need to wonder any longer where the anti-Jewish and anti-israel protesters have been getting some of their the money for their fancy banners, or how they’ve managed to take so much time away from work to disturb, disrupt and disgorge their hate.

Avril Haines, the US Director of National Intelligence, the person who serves as the head of the US intelligence community, said on Tuesday, We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests and even providing financial support to protesters.

Her statement doesn’t clarify which protesters Iran has sunk its vampire fangs into, or how much money the mullahs have funneled to them.  She says Americans (shall I call them useful idiots or malign morons) who are being targeted by this Iranian campaign may not be aware that they are interacting with or receiving support from a foreign government.

Okay, so there may be some who aren’t aware they’re being used by the terror pimps of Tehran.  But to me, Haines leaves open the possibility that there are some who know full well Iran is backing them.

Whatever the case, make no mistake.  Iran is gleefully doing what it can to create chaos for the big satan on its home turf, and is using antisemitism and anti-Israelism for its own pernicious purposes.

If you naively thought the war between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Syria, Iraq and Iran was just between them, think again.  Israel is waging a war of western democratic values versus radical Islamic fundamentalism.  It is a global struggle being played out not only in the Middle East, but also in the plazas and piazzas of Europe, in the streets and boulevards of American cities and on the campuses and in the classrooms of our universities.

Which brings me to the snickering, texting deans at Columbia.

Three of them got shoved off to indefinite leave this past week after sending text messages to each other during a campus forum on antisemitism.  They should have been fired outright.

Around a month ago, the Washington Free Beacon published photos of some of the texts that were taken by an alum.

They texted about Jewish privilege and about a panel member using the discussion as a means to fundraise.  There was a vomit emoji in reference to an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator newspaper about antisemitism at the university written by a campus rabbi.

Another text from a vice-dean said, I’m going to throw up, when the daughter of a Holocaust survivor said she was fearful for her own daughter, a student at Columbia.

All this shows me that the hatred of Israel and of Jews at Columbia runs deep.  It is openly embedded in some of the faculty and now we see it in the higher echelons of the administration as well.

Hate directed against Israel-supporting Jewish students is not punished on a par with aggressions against other religious and racial groups.

It will take a decade, perhaps longer to rid the university of this rot, if there is even a will to do so.  Tenured professors that humiliate, denigrate and ostracize Jewish and Israeli students will have to be removed.  Jewish students will have to become the full beneficiaries of the school’s DEI policies.  Perhaps the antisemitism at Columbia will never be eradicated.  Who knows.

All I know is my alma mater is in a very bad place right now when it comes to its Jewish students.

There’s one disgraced American politician who is using the menace to Jewish students as a way to help resurrect his career.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo feels the burning need to tell us how bad Hamas is and how misguided its supporters are.

He just released a TV ad from his pro-Israel nonprofit group, Never Again, NOW, that condemns Hamas’ brutality and questions the anti-Israel protesters’ motives.

You can watch it on social media.

Leave it to altruistic Andrew to seed his possible political comeback with a pro-Israel commercial.  Ever the calculating politician, Cuomo knows he needs New York’s Jewish voters to back him strongly if he has any chance at a successful run for mayor or governor.

I will say this about Andrew Cuomo.  He is relentless.

And so is President Joe Biden.  He relentlessly refuses to drop out of the presidential race.  But does he?

He told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos it would take a visit by the almighty to force him to call it quits.

But this past week, in his first solo news conference since November, he kinda backtracked a bit.  Instead of invoking the supreme being (and I don’t mean George Clooney), as the final arbiter whether he would run or not, he went down a few notches and said he would drop out if his advisers told him there’s no way you can win.

I interpret advisers to mean Jill, his wife and his boy Hunter.  They’re the ones who’ll tell Papa Joe it’s over, if they calculate it will be less embarrassing for him to bow out now instead of losing to Donald Trump in November.

All this could become more evident this coming week, as polls solidify and donors disappear.

Here’s a crazy thought.  What if Biden calls it quits right before or just after the start of the Republican National Convention that begins on Monday?

All the media attention will be stripped away from Trump, the ultimate attention seeker.

Maybe that's the way old slow Joe gets the last laugh on his “vice president”, Donald Trump.

And as far as Trump is concerned…the assassination attempt on Saturday was condemned by Republicans and by Democrats, as it should be.

At least there seems to be some semblance of sanity left in American politics.