Update your settings

This is the holiday season, and it’s supposed to be a time for joy and celebration. It’s Christmas and Hanukkah. And family gatherings, office parties, and beautiful Christmas trees and menorahs. And Santa Claus and putting big smiles on the faces of our kids and our grandchildren. Yet suddenly all the news is horrible. It’s like evildoers are trying to snatch happiness from civilized people.

I can’t explain the unmentionable deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele. I can’t explain it. Nor can I account for the motive of the shootings at Brown University. These are hideous acts of violence, at a time of year that is supposed to be filled with good cheer. But I can explain the horrific acts of antisemitism that occurred in Australia during a Hanukkah event.

This mass killing by two crazy people, father and son, comes from a country that is a great American ally, but is being run by a left-wing cabal. Led by Anthony Albanese.

According to Axios, there have been more than 1,600 recorded antisemitic incidents in the country this year alone, according to data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. Fortunately, a brave Muslim man Ahmed al-Ahmed, appeared out of nowhere and disarmed one of the gunmen in the Bondi massacre. This was great heroism. But tragically 16 were murdered and some three dozen more were wounded in the worst instance of antisemitic violence since the October 7 terror attack against Israel.

Here’s what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to say to Australia’s Albanese yesterday: "On August 17, about four months ago, I sent Prime Minister Albanese of Australia a letter in which I gave him warning that the Australian government's policy was promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia." 

Netanyahu added "Instead, Prime Minister, you replaced weakness with weakness and appeasement with more appeasement. Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today."

So, I'll just say, good for Prime Minister Netanyahu. People must be held accountable. That includes governments who are our allies, but there is a link between coddling antisemitism and subsequent acts of inhumane violence.

Which brings me back to the U.S. I have no idea what motive prompted the killing of two students at Brown University and injuring nine more. But I do want to note that Brown, along with Columbia, Penn and many other elite American universities, have coddled antisemitism for years. The whole DEI movement (diversity, equity, and inclusion) which spread like wildfire, until President Donald Trump put an end to it, was the progenitor of all this campus antisemitism.

President Trump has stomped on these schools, threatening to take their lavish federal funding away, and forced a number of campus reforms. And it looks like many of the schools are changing their policies.

So at least in most of America, the lightness and brightness of Christmas and Hanukkah will be celebrated. And I'll just say many thanks to the toughness of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu.