Latest news with #DavidDuke
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Glasgow players in Team Scotland squad for Homeless World Cup
Glasgow players are part of Team Scotland's squad aiming to make history at the Homeless World Cup. The tournament, now in its 20th year, will take place in Oslo from August 23 to 30, bringing together more than 500 players from around the world. Among Team Scotland's line-up are five players from Glasgow: William, 29; Ali A, 23; Ali T, 21; Paul, 39; and Mo E, 18. Derek Ferguson will manage the team (Image: Supplied) David Duke MBE, founder and chief executive officer of Street Soccer Scotland, said: "We're thrilled to be heading back to Oslo for this year's Homeless World Cup and to offer our players the incredible opportunity to represent their country. "Having captained Team Scotland in 2004, I've witnessed firsthand the powerful impact this tournament can have. Read more: Glasgow health centre setting new benchmark with Amazon-powered healthcare "At the heart of everything we do, both on and off the pitch, are hope, purpose, and meaningful connections. "I'm incredibly proud of the team we've assembled and hope the whole nation will get behind this talented group of players." Team Scotland has previously won the Homeless World Cup twice, in 2007 and 2011. The tournament uses football as a tool for social inclusion, helping to build confidence, community, and challenge the stigma of homelessness. Derek Ferguson, a former professional footballer and media personality from North Lanarkshire, will manage the team. Mr Ferguson said: "It's an honour to stand beside this incredible team as we head to the Homeless World Cup. "I'm proud of every single player – not just for their talent, but for their resilience, heart, and determination. "We're ready to compete with pride, represent Scotland, and bring the hat-trick of titles home where it belongs." The team is sponsored by the Burness Paull Foundation, The Malcolm Group, The David Yarrow Family Foundation, and The Hunter Foundation. Support also comes from the Scottish FA, Powerleague, SportScotland, ScotRail and the Hampden Sports Clinic.
Roya News
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Roya News
Critics slam pro-'Israel' courses now required at US universities
Northwestern University is facing growing criticism over a mandatory anti-Semitism training video that many students and faculty say conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and misrepresents the Palestinian cause. The video, produced by the Jewish United Fund (JUF), is part of a broader trend of anti-Semitism trainings being introduced at US universities following pressure from the Trump administration to address anti-Semitism on campuses, or risk losing federal funding, the Guardian reported. In one segment of the video, titled anti-Semitism Here/Now, students are asked to play a guessing game distinguishing quotes by "anti-Israel activists" from those made by David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader. One disturbing quote, 'Every time I read Hitler, I fall in love again', is revealed to be from an "anti-Israel activist." The narrator concludes, 'The fact that you can't tell the difference is terrifying,' and adds, 'for most Jews, being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic are the same.' That framing has sparked anger among student groups, especially pro-Palestinian advocates and Jewish students who do not support Zionism. Graduate student Micol Bez called the video "shocking," accusing it of vilifying Palestinians and Jews who oppose 'Israel's' actions in Gaza. 'It explicitly requires students to adopt the position that all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic,' she said. The training was made mandatory earlier this year. Under university policy, students who fail to complete the training are barred from class registration, and graduate students risk losing their stipends. Bez, who has watched the video but refuses to submit completion, has had a hold placed on her academic records. Northwestern's training comes amid a broader federal effort: At least 60 universities have been investigated by the US Department of Education for potential violations of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or religion. Northwestern is one of several institutions under investigation and has implemented the training to comply with Trump's executive order aimed at combating anti-Semitism on campuses. Despite its adoption of the training, Northwestern's relationship with the federal government has remained strained. The university saw a USD 790 million cut in research funding, and some believe more pressure is coming. 'They thought this would save them , it did not,' said Noah Cooper, a sophomore and member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Critics, including Jewish advocacy and free speech groups, argue that the materials are one-sided, vague, and often distort history. Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Zionist organization J Street, warned that the misuse of anti-Semitism to serve political agendas risks fueling real anti-Semitism. 'If people see universities threatened or programs cut in the name of anti-Semitism enforcement, that will backfire,' he said. The training video leans heavily on a controversial definition of anti-Semitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which critics argue equates criticism of 'Israel' with anti-Semitism. It also refers to 'Israel' as having been founded 'on British land,' and uses the biblical term 'Judea and Samaria' for the West Bank, terminology favored by the 'Israeli' government but rejected by international consensus. 'The content is incredibly unscholarly,' said Bez. 'It erases the pain and suffering of Palestinian people and normalizes language used to justify the occupation.' The video is part of a broader mandatory curriculum titled Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias, which also includes videos addressing anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination. However, students say the training lacks balance. While the anti-Semitism module presents a detailed defense of Zionism, the segments addressing Islamophobia do not include Palestinian perspectives or historical context regarding Gaza or the Israeli Occupation. 'Instead of encouraging critical thinking, the video promotes a singular worldview,' said Cooper, who completed the training. 'It's not about dialogue, it's about compliance.' Materials reviewed from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has partnered with other universities such as Columbia to provide similar training, reinforce the same message. ADL toolkits label flyers criticizing 'Israel's' demolition of Palestinian homes as potentially anti-Semitic. Critics argue that conflating legitimate political critique with hate speech confuses students and chills free speech. 'Scaring schools into adopting rigid speech limitations flips the values of academic freedom and free speech on their head,' said Veronica Salama of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The training also encourages students to report peers, write op-eds, and coordinate with pro-'Israel' campus organizations like Hillel to respond to perceived bias. In response to criticism, Northwestern said in a statement that students are 'not required to agree' with the video and that it reflects the views of many in the Jewish community. 'We believe it is important for our students to have an understanding of that perspective,' the statement said. But for many, the issue remains unresolved. 'I am an anti-Zionist Jew,' said Cooper. 'And the video didn't make me feel safe or protected in any way it claimed it would.'
The Guardian
30-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Antisemitism training designed by pro-Israel groups is becoming compulsory at US colleges. What's in it?
Near the end of an antisemitism training video that Northwestern University students are required to watch, the narrator urges viewers to play a guessing game. Six statements pop on to the screen – the viewer must choose whether they were made by 'anti-Israel activists' or the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Among the statements: 'Every time I read Hitler, I fall in love again.' The video reveals that the statement was made by an 'anti-Israel activist'. The narrator then states: 'The fact that you can't tell the difference is terrifying.' He adds that for most Jews, being anti-Israel and antisemitic 'are the same'. The video is part of a wave of controversial antisemitism trainings being implemented by universities across the US starting this school year, in response to Trump administration threats to pull funding for institutions that, in its view, fail to adequately address campus antisemitism. It is not clear how universities will enforce student participation. The Northwestern training was produced by the Jewish United Federation (JUF) , a pro-Israel advocacy group, and it drew pushback from some students. The Hitler statement was probably tweeted in 2013 by a high school student, members of pro-Palestinain Northwestern groups found. They accused JUF of cherrypicking a child's comment made 12 years ago to portray all criticism of Israel and Zionism as antisemitic. Moreover, the Hitler comment was placed among statements that legitimately criticize the Israeli government and are not antisemitic. The broader goal is to silence opposition to Israel's genocide in Gaza, said Micol Bez, a Jewish graduate student at Northwestern who is supportive of Palestinian rights. 'We were shocked by the video … which directly vilifies the movement for rights for Palestinian people and non-Zionist Jews who stand against genocide,' Bez said. 'It explicitly requires students to adopt the position that there's no room for anti-Zionism, and that all anti-Zionism is antisemitic.' The trainings' opponents, many of them Jewish, say the material does little to protect Jews. They accuse the Trump administration of wielding often false claims of antisemitism for two ends – to cut funding for universities as the president wages a culture war on higher education, and to help rightwing pro-Israel groups silence legitimate criticism of Israel. At least 60 universities so far have been investigated by the US Department of Education for potential violations of Title VI, a law that prohibits schools from discrimination based on race, ethnicity and religion. Columbia University, City University of New York, Harvard University and Barnard University are among those implementing the antisemitism trainings, which were generally developed after the Trump crackdown, and may aim to appease the Trump administration. At Northwestern, which is under multiple federal investigations for alleged antisemitism, the university emailed students in March to say that the implementation of the training 'will adhere to federal policy including President Donald Trump's Jan. 29 executive order, 'Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism''. Students who do not complete the training cannot register for classes, while graduate students can lose stipends. Bez said she had viewed the training, but had so far refused to officially complete it and the university had put a hold on her registration. Introducing the training has not helped Northwestern's relationship with the Trump administration. Even after implementing it, the administration cut $790m in research funding. Trump is now trying to extract further concessions. 'They thought this would save them – it did not,' said Noah Cooper, a Northwestern sophomore and an anti-Zionist with Jewish Voice for Peace who completed the training. The Guardian reviewed training materials developed by the JUF and the Anti-Defamation League, which both push pro-Israel agendas in the US, and found the overarching message is that criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitic. The materials advise students on how to respond to antisemitic or anti-Israel speech, and spread a pro-Israel message. That includes tips on effective online debating, media strategies and how to pressure administrators into cracking down on anti-Israel campus speech. Some Jewish and free speech groups have raised a litany of concerns about the materials, including that they are often one-sided, misleading, vague and sometimes historically inaccurate. Not only did the trainings do little to protect Jews from antisemitism, the universities and Trump may even be endangering Jews because they are 'allowing antisemitism to be used for other political purposes', like attacking higher education, said Jeremy Jacobs, executive director of J Street, a center-left, pro-Zionist lobbying and cultural organization. 'If people start to see that their universities, their medical research and their neighbors' immigration status and right to due process are being endangered because the Jewish community is pressuring for enforcement in ways that go way too far – that will generate actual antisemitism,' Jacobs added. In an email, a Northwestern spokesperson said students 'are not required to agree' with the antisemitism trainings and stressed that the speaker in the video said he did not speak for all Jewish people. 'However, he does represent how many in the Jewish community feel when targeted with certain actions and words, and we believe it is important for our students to have an understanding of that,' the spokesperson wrote. The ADL also has created their own antisemitism training and is partnering with Columbia among other universities to implement it. A centerpiece of their 'Think. Plan. Act.' toolkit for higher education is a section titled 'How can I be prepared for antisemitic and anti-Israel bias on campus? Scenarios and best practices.' It lays out 10 hypothetical antisemitic and 'anti-Israel situations', why the ADL views them as a problem and advises students on how to respond. One scenario explains why someone spray-painting swastikas on a Jewish fraternity home is a problem, while another example examines why fliers criticizing the Israeli government for demolishing Palestinian homes is similarly an issue. A third raises concerns over a hypothetical 'charge that a sponsored Israel trip Is 'pro-apartheid propaganda''. Lumping together examples of legitimate criticism of Israel's government and obvious antisemitic acts is designed to convince students and administrators that the actions are similarly problematic, critics say. It also appears to raise the specter of Title VI discrimination violations, said Veronica Salama, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. However, Title VI doesn't protect against criticism of countries, and a term like 'anti-Israel situation' has no legal meaning, but critics say the intent is evident. 'Scaring schools into adopting these rigid speech limitations to avoid a federal investigation or a possible Title VI suit turns academic freedom and free speech principles on its head,' Salama said. The ADL's hypothetical scenario involving flyers critical of Israel's demolition program encapsulates many other issues that those who reviewed the material or completed a training raised. The scenario begins with a student leaving their dorm room to find a flyer taped to the door 'warning that your residence hall will soon be demolished'. 'The rest of the flyer contains 'facts' about how many Palestinian homes have been demolished by the Israeli military to collectively punish and 'ethnically cleanse' Palestinians,' the toolkit continues. The ADL is referring to the highly charged debate over Israel's mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank. The training material then offers the Israeli narrative around the demolitions, claiming they target 'terrorists' and 'deter others from terrorist action'. Other homes were demolished because they were 'built without proper permits', the ADL states. 'While you may agree or disagree with these Israeli government actions, the charge that Israel has demolished these homes to 'ethnically cleanse' Palestinians is inaccurate and inflammatory,' the ADL material states. The Palestinian perspective on the demolitions is not found in the training material, and excluding their side story is a problem, those who reviewed the material said. As many as 40,000 Palestinians in the West Bank alone, including refugee camps, are estimated to have been forced from their homes since the beginning of 2024, in addition to millions more in Israel and the Palestinian territories in previous decades. A UN special rapporteur in March warned of an 'ethnic cleansing' in the West Bank as Israel has accelerated demolitions. Meanwhile, the Israeli military often won't issue building permits to Palestinians. The antisemitism training video was shown as part of a new mandatory bias training called Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias. The antisemitism video is shown alongside a separate video made in partnership with The Inclusion Expert, a bias training company, on anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias, and a third video about campus protest. The Islamophobia training covers forms of bias and racism toward Arab, Muslim and Palestinian people. But, unlike the JUF antisemitism video that presented a pro-Israel viewpoint on the conflict, there was no historical context or basic arguments for the Palestinian cause. Nor did it mention what has happened in Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attack. 'The point was not to foster conversation or give people a nuanced view of this conflict,' Northwestern's Cooper said. 'The point was to get people to agree on one particular worldview.' The trainings also drew criticism because they are often vague, and demand different standards for the Israeli and Palestinian causes. The ADL concedes that the hypothetical flyers criticizing Israel over its demolition of Palestinian homes 'could represent legitimate political discourse'. But it states that the flyers would be 'less acceptable' if the university administration had approved of them. 'What this training is saying is, 'If your school allows let's say Students for Justice in Palestine to put up a flyer like this, then they are necessarily violating Title VI', and that is just not true,' Salama said. The ADL's material repeatedly advises students on how to respond to criticism of Israel and antisemitism. It suggests pressuring administration to respond, contacting Hillel, reporting issues to the ADL or writing op-eds, among other actions. 'Strategize with your friends, campus Hillel and/or representatives of the pro-Israel community about countering the false allegations made in the flier and further educating about Israel's security challenges,' the ADL states. Northwestern students pointed to a list of controversial statements and claims made throughout the antisemitism training video, called 'Antisemitism Here/Now'. It employs a controversial and legally dubious definition of antisemitism written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, that critics say equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The video states that Israel was founded in 1948 'on British land', and refers to the West Bank as 'Judea and Samaria', the biblical name controversially used for the region by the Israeli government. The original Jewish homeland comprises parts of modern-day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, the video states. Bez questioned why the university did not utilize Northwestern scholars on the region and its history, and instead hired an outside pro-Israel group to develop the training. 'The content is incredibly unscholarly and has really, really egregious claims,' Bez said. 'It erases the pain and suffering of Palestinian people, and normalizes language that is being used to push the occupation.' In a statement, a Northwestern spokesperson said, 'part the University's mission is exposing our students to viewpoints that are different, and in some cases challenging, from their own – a key part of Northwestern's mission.' Meanwhile, as the narrator attempts to conflate Judaism and Zionism, it states that the 'vast majority' of Jewish people are Zionist. 'I am an anti-Zionist Jew and it doesn't make me feel good, safe or protected in the way the video claimed to,' Cooper said.
The Guardian
30-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Antisemitism training designed by pro-Israel groups is becoming compulsory at US colleges. What's in it?
Near the end of an antisemitism training video that Northwestern University students are required to watch, the narrator urges viewers to play a guessing game. Six statements pop on to the screen – the viewer must choose whether they were made by 'anti-Israel activists' or the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Among the statements: 'Every time I read Hitler, I fall in love again.' The video reveals that the statement was made by an 'anti-Israel activist'. The narrator then states: 'The fact that you can't tell the difference is terrifying.' He adds that for most Jews, being anti-Israel and antisemitic 'are the same'. The video is part of a wave of controversial antisemitism trainings being implemented by universities across the US starting this school year, in response to Trump administration threats to pull funding for institutions that, in its view, fail to adequately address campus antisemitism. It is not clear how universities will enforce student participation. The Northwestern training was produced by the Jewish United Federation (JUF) , a pro-Israel advocacy group, and it drew pushback from some students. The Hitler statement was probably tweeted in 2013 by a high school student, members of pro-Palestinain Northwestern groups found. They accused JUF of cherrypicking a child's comment made 12 years ago to portray all criticism of Israel and Zionism as antisemitic. Moreover, the Hitler comment was placed among statements that legitimately criticize the Israeli government and are not antisemitic. The broader goal is to silence opposition to Israel's genocide in Gaza, said Micol Bez, a Jewish graduate student at Northwestern who is supportive of Palestinian rights. 'We were shocked by the video … which directly vilifies the movement for rights for Palestinian people and non-Zionist Jews who stand against genocide,' Bez said. 'It explicitly requires students to adopt the position that there's no room for anti-Zionism, and that all anti-Zionism is antisemitic.' The trainings' opponents, many of them Jewish, say the material does little to protect Jews. They accuse the Trump administration of wielding often false claims of antisemitism for two ends – to cut funding for universities as the president wages a culture war on higher education, and to help rightwing pro-Israel groups silence legitimate criticism of Israel. At least 60 universities so far have been investigated by the US Department of Education for potential violations of Title VI, a law that prohibits schools from discrimination based on race, ethnicity and religion. Columbia University, City University of New York, Harvard University and Barnard University are among those implementing the antisemitism trainings, which were generally developed after the Trump crackdown, and may aim to appease the Trump administration. At Northwestern, which is under multiple federal investigations for alleged antisemitism, the university emailed students in March to say that the implementation of the training 'will adhere to federal policy including President Donald Trump's Jan. 29 executive order, 'Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism''. Students who do not complete the training cannot register for classes, while graduate students can lose stipends. Bez said she had viewed the training, but had so far refused to officially complete it and the university had put a hold on her registration. Introducing the training has not helped Northwestern's relationship with the Trump administration. Even after implementing it, the administration cut $790m in research funding. Trump is now trying to extract further concessions. 'They thought this would save them – it did not,' said Noah Cooper, a Northwestern sophomore and an anti-Zionist with Jewish Voice for Peace who completed the training. The Guardian reviewed training materials developed by the JUF and the Anti-Defamation League, which both push pro-Israel agendas in the US, and found the overarching message is that criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitic. The materials advise students on how to respond to antisemitic or anti-Israel speech, and spread a pro-Israel message. That includes tips on effective online debating, media strategies and how to pressure administrators into cracking down on anti-Israel campus speech. Some Jewish and free speech groups have raised a litany of concerns about the materials, including that they are often one-sided, misleading, vague and sometimes historically inaccurate. Not only did the trainings do little to protect Jews from antisemitism, the universities and Trump may even be endangering Jews because they are 'allowing antisemitism to be used for other political purposes', like attacking higher education, said Jeremy Jacobs, executive director of J Street, a center-left, pro-Zionist lobbying and cultural organization. 'If people start to see that their universities, their medical research and their neighbors' immigration status and right to due process are being endangered because the Jewish community is pressuring for enforcement in ways that go way too far – that will generate actual antisemitism,' Jacobs added. In an email, a Northwestern spokesperson said students 'are not required to agree' with the antisemitism trainings and stressed that the speaker in the video said he did not speak for all Jewish people. 'However, he does represent how many in the Jewish community feel when targeted with certain actions and words, and we believe it is important for our students to have an understanding of that,' the spokesperson wrote. The ADL also has created their own antisemitism training and is partnering with Columbia among other universities to implement it. A centerpiece of their 'Think. Plan. Act.' toolkit for higher education is a section titled 'How can I be prepared for antisemitic and anti-Israel bias on campus? Scenarios and best practices.' It lays out 10 hypothetical antisemitic and 'anti-Israel situations', why the ADL views them as a problem and advises students on how to respond. One scenario explains why someone spray-painting swastikas on a Jewish fraternity home is a problem, while another example examines why fliers criticizing the Israeli government for demolishing Palestinian homes is similarly an issue. A third raises concerns over a hypothetical 'charge that a sponsored Israel trip Is 'pro-apartheid propaganda''. Lumping together examples of legitimate criticism of Israel's government and obvious antisemitic acts is designed to convince students and administrators that the actions are similarly problematic, critics say. It also appears to raise the specter of Title VI discrimination violations, said Veronica Salama, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. However, Title VI doesn't protect against criticism of countries, and a term like 'anti-Israel situation' has no legal meaning, Salama said. But the ADL's intent is evident, she added. 'The tactic is to scare universities into placing a limitation on this type of speech for fear that they will get hit with a Title VI lawsuit or be investigated by the Trump administration,' Salama said. The ADL's hypothetical scenario involving flyers critical of Israel's demolition program encapsulates many other issues that those who reviewed the material or completed a training raised. The scenario begins with a student leaving their dorm room to find a flyer taped to the door 'warning that your residence hall will soon be demolished'. 'The rest of the flyer contains 'facts' about how many Palestinian homes have been demolished by the Israeli military to collectively punish and 'ethnically cleanse' Palestinians,' the toolkit continues. The ADL is referring to the highly charged debate over Israel's mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank. The training material then offers the Israeli narrative around the demolitions, claiming they target 'terrorists' and 'deter others from terrorist action'. Other homes were demolished because they were 'built without proper permits', the ADL states. 'While you may agree or disagree with these Israeli government actions, the charge that Israel has demolished these homes to 'ethnically cleanse' Palestinians is inaccurate and inflammatory,' the ADL material states. The Palestinian perspective on the demolitions is not found in the training material, and excluding their side story is a problem, those who reviewed the material said. As many as 40,000 Palestinians in the West Bank alone, including refugee camps, are estimated to have been forced from their homes since the beginning of 2024, in addition to millions more in Israel and the Palestinian territories in previous decades. A UN special rapporteur in March warned of an 'ethnic cleansing' in the West Bank as Israel has accelerated demolitions. Meanwhile, the Israeli military often won't issue building permits to Palestinians. The antisemitism training video was shown as part of a new mandatory bias training called Building a Community of Respect and Breaking Down Bias. The antisemitism video is shown alongside a separate video made in partnership with The Inclusion Expert, a bias training company, on anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias, and a third video about campus protest. The Islamophobia training covers forms of bias and racism toward Arab, Muslim and Palestinian people. But, unlike the JUF antisemitism video that presented a pro-Israel viewpoint on the conflict, there was no historical context or basic arguments for the Palestinian cause. Nor did it mention what has happened in Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attack. 'The point was not to foster conversation or give people a nuanced view of this conflict,' Northwestern's Cooper said. 'The point was to get people to agree on one particular worldview.' The trainings also drew criticism because they are often vague, and demand different standards for the Israeli and Palestinian causes. The ADL concedes that the hypothetical flyers criticizing Israel over its demolition of Palestinian homes 'could represent legitimate political discourse'. But it states that the flyers would be 'less acceptable' if the university administration had approved of them. 'What this training is saying is, 'If your school allows let's say Students for Justice in Palestine to put up a flyer like this, then they are necessarily violating Title VI', and that is just not true,' Salama said. The ADL's material repeatedly advises students on how to respond to criticism of Israel and antisemitism. It suggests pressuring administration to respond, contacting Hillel, reporting issues to the ADL or writing op-eds, among other actions. 'Strategize with your friends, campus Hillel and/or representatives of the pro-Israel community about countering the false allegations made in the flier and further educating about Israel's security challenges,' the ADL states. Northwestern students pointed to a list of controversial statements and claims made throughout the antisemitism training video, called 'Antisemitism Here/Now'. It employs a controversial and legally dubious definition of antisemitism written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, that critics say equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The video states that Israel was founded in 1948 'on British land', and refers to the West Bank as 'Judea and Samaria', the biblical name controversially used for the region by the Israeli government. The original Jewish homeland comprises parts of modern-day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, the video states. Bez questioned why the university did not utilize Northwestern scholars on the region and its history, and instead hired an outside pro-Israel group to develop the training. 'The content is incredibly unscholarly and has really, really egregious claims,' Bez said. 'It erases the pain and suffering of Palestinian people, and normalizes language that is being used to push the occupation.' In a statement, a Northwestern spokesperson said, 'part the University's mission is exposing our students to viewpoints that are different, and in some cases challenging, from their own – a key part of Northwestern's mission.' Meanwhile, as the narrator attempts to conflate Judaism and Zionism, it states that the 'vast majority' of Jewish people are Zionist. 'I am an anti-Zionist Jew and it doesn't make me feel good, safe or protected in the way the video claimed to,' Cooper said.
Telegraph
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Want to understand Trumpism? This is the book you need
The 2016 election wasn't the first occasion on which Donald Trump had considered running to be president of the United States. He seriously played with the idea in the run-up to the 2000 election too. Oprah Winfrey might have been his running mate. Trump was a member of the Republican Party back then, but not a happy one. In October 1999, aged 53, he bolted to join the upstart Reform Party because he thought the GOP was becoming 'too crazy'. But he also feared that the frontrunner to be the Reform presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, was mad. 'It's just incredible that anyone can embrace this guy,' Trump said at the time. 'He's a Hitler lover. I guess he's an anti-Semite. He doesn't like the blacks, he doesn't like the gays… He would only get the staunch Right wacko vote.' It didn't escape Trump's notice that David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, wanted to join the Reform Party. Trump left it again in February 2000, after mere months. Trump, in the 1990s, was politically heterodox. Over the decade, he donated equally to the Democrats and the Republicans. He supported Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He held liberal positions on abortion and healthcare. But he was also sceptical about immigration and free trade; his longest-held political conviction was that America was being ripped off by other countries. And on the latter issues he found himself politically aligned with Buchanan, who had been Richard Nixon's speechwriter in the late 1960s and coined the phrase the 'Silent Majority'. Buchanan features among the leading characters in When the Clock Broke, a spry and superbly written book on 1990s American politics by John Ganz. It's the best account I have ever read on the origins of Trumpism. I confess that I didn't come into the book with great expectations: my knowledge of Ganz was largely confined to seeing him being rude to random Right-wing people on X, and knowing that he had a Substack account dedicated to the study of fascism. But this is a substantial work of intellectual history. Trump haunts almost every page, and Ganz's passionate engagement with personalities and ideas he clearly deplores – he's fiercely Left-wing – is invigorating. Part of the reason why it works is that Ganz shares with the people about whom he writes the conviction that America is in crisis. 'American democracy,' he writes, 'is often spoken of as being in peril.' He agrees, adding: 'Others point out that democracy never fully existed in the first place' and 'this book also agrees with that thesis'. (He merely disagrees with them on what to do about it.) The book's argument is clear and convincing: understanding American politics in the early 1990s is key to understanding Trumpism today. During that period, a group of maverick intellectuals and politicians, from Duke and Buchanan to Ross Perot and Murray Rothbard, waged war against the conservative establishment. 'For them,' Ganz writes, 'the 1980s represented a betrayal: they understood Ronald Reagan as the champion of the economic interests of and cultural values of white Middle Americans, but [the latter] now seemed worse off than ever.' The country was in dire straits. The streets were plagued by crime and drug use. Recession and unemployment crippled hard-working families. Political correctness in universities and the media demonised American culture and history. Ross Perot became the 'populist billionaire', winning over 18 per cent of the vote in the 1992 election on a platform of reducing the national debt and slashing bureaucracy. Sam Francis, one of the intellectual figures behind this reaction to the conservative establishment, wrote that 'the New Right is not a conservative force but a radical or revolutionary one.' True, they were revolutionary in one sense, but they were arch-conservative in others. Some of them described themselves as the Old Right, and contrasted themselves with the neo-cons who often, as Ganz writes, were 'formerly liberals who had only recently fled the Democratic Party out of disgust for the New Left and fear of the Black Power movement.' Buchanan and his ilk considered them to be newcomers who 'were barely conservatives in the first place'. The New Right, by contrast, were essentially paleocons who 'traced their lineage to the isolationist, pre-war America Firsters'. They anathematised a range of things, from 'the New Deal' to the 'Great Society'. They despised mass immigration, free trade and foreign interventionism, all of which had become emblematic of the Reagan -Bush GOP from 1981 to 1993. (Reagan famously gave amnesty to almost three million illegal immigrants in 1987.) The person who embodied the out-of-touch conservative establishment more than anyone else was George HW Bush, Reagan's vice-president from 1981 to 1989 then president himself from 1989 to 1993. He was patrician by blood and upbringing; he had been raised in New England, had been educated at private schools and at Yale, and had gone from plum job to plum job, becoming director of the CIA, ambassador to the UN, and eventually the man in the Oval Office. It was no surprise that Buchanan referred to Bush as 'King George' – which, for obvious historical reasons, may be the worst insult one can bestow on an American leader. Bush's tax hike in the early 1990s, after promising he wouldn't raise them – 'Read my lips', and so on – was a particularly egregious betrayal. Buchanan said of Bush: 'He is yesterday and we are tomorrow. He is a globalist and we are nationalists.' In 1992, Buchanan demanded a wall along the border with Mexico and a five-year moratorium on legal migration. He won 37 per cent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and declared in a speech there: 'When we take America back, we are going to make America great again, because there is nothing wrong with putting America first.' The rest of the 1990s would, however, prove a great disappointment for these insurgents. Perot did much worse in 1996 than he had in 1992. Buchanan also tried to run on a GOP ticket again, but was unable to capture the same level of support and enthusiasm as he had four years before. Francis and Rothbard remained relatively obscure. And, of course, the Reform Party did poorly in the 2000 election. In retrospect, 1992 was the high noon for these particular renegades, at least on an individual level. Yet their ideas and convictions would come back with a renewed force in the mid-2010s, and dominate the Republican Party today. 'On the one hand,' Ganz writes, the influence of Francis on the 21st-century GOP is abundantly clear. 'There's a conception of the party as a national populist movement on behalf of the Middle American working class led by a Caesarist president to smash the power of the 'globalist' professional and managerial elite.' And then there's the influence of Rothbard, who had 'a radical libertarian project of administrative state demolition beyond a populist façade'. In other words, Buchanan was John the Baptist to Trump's Messiah. Thirty years on, the Republican party is no longer the party of Reagan and the Bushes: Trump rules unopposed. When the Clock Broke is a brilliant explanation of his rise.
