Ben Collins’ Israel ‘disinfo,’ the kids are not all right and other commentary

Campus watch: The Kids Are Not All Right

Anne Applebaum recently griped that “small numbers” of students “with stupid or even evil opinions” seems the least of our problems. That, note The Free Press’ Bari Weiss & Oliver Wiseman, echoes common advice that “students will ultimately grow up and shake off their outlandish ideas.” Let’s “get this straight”: “College is worth taking on hundreds of thousands in debt . . . but also completely meaningless?” Indeed, it’s “wishful thinking to say people naturally grow out of hateful beliefs.” Fact is, if “Ivy League students are glorifying Hamas, with professors applauding them,” there’s little reason to think “a few years later,” as congressmen, lawyers, teachers, they’ll “necessarily have changed their views.”

Republican: How To Win on Abortion

Virginia’s contests this fall should “give the country a look at what to expect in races across the country next year,” especially “what the candidates and, ultimately, the voters have to say about abortion,” contends Sean Spicer at The Hill. Republicans’ instinct is “to take a defensive posture,” but why “speak from a position of weakness” when “leading Virginia Democrats” have given them “plenty of room” to go on the offensive by backing abortion up to the moment of birth — and even after? On offense, GOP candidates can “talk about necessary economic policy fixes as an attack on the abortion industry. After all, is there any more grim indicator of economic hardship in society than doctors killing unborn children because their parents cannot afford them?” In 2021, that helped now-Delegate Kim Taylor (R–Dinwiddie) win “in a district with an 18-point Democratic advantage.”

War beat: To See Gaza, Look to Mosul

“One recent urban conflagration” has “great relevance” to any ground assault on Gaza, argues Bradley Brincka at Tablet: “the U.S.-backed Iraqi campaign to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State.” The “startling cost of liberation: some 8,200 dead Iraqi servicemen” plus “an estimated 10,000 civilians killed.” Yes, “even the most ‘humane’ application of force in full accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict in a densely populated city results in shocking death and destruction.” Now, events point “toward an ominous and seemingly inexorable trajectory” driven by “the horrors inflicted on southern Israel by Hamas”: that “Gaza is doomed” and “its population will soon share the people of Mosul’s fate.”

Libertarian: ‘Disinfo’ Reporter’s Israel Disinfo

NBC reporter Ben Collins “is treated as an expert in the burgeoning field of countering the spread of misinformation,” yet this week he “helped circulate the inaccurate claims of the Palestinian authorities” that “laid the blame” for the Gaza hospital explosion “squarely on an Israeli airstrike,” Reason’s Robby Soave points out. “In theory, the confusion surrounding the hospital explosion is a great topic for a self-described disinformation reporter,” since “many left-leaning writers and political figures recklessly endorsed the Palestinian view that Israel had bombed the hospital.” While “Collins is not the only journalist who gets things wrong,” something is “extra galling about journalistic errors when they are perpetrated by someone who holds himself out as especially talented at identifying lies.”

Eye on education: A Win for NY Charters

Thanks to Gov. Hochul’s push to change New York’s charter-school law, this week saw “five charter schools, which together plan to serve more than 2,300 New York City students” get “the green light to open,” cheers the Empire Center’s Emily D’Vertola. Despite threats from teachers unions, Hochul got state lawmakers to agree to changes allowing “another 22 schools to open by utilizing left-over charters from schools that either closed or never opened.” That let “five previously authorized schools that were blocked by the cap” be re-approved to open — “some as soon as next August.” Adding 2,000 more families with “a stake in New York’s charter schools will make it that much harder for charter opponents to pull the plug on two decades of success — or to keep blocking the doors for other students.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board