Heather Mac Donald's Talk Wasn't Perfect, But It Wasn't Racist Either

A few weeks ago, The Fenwick Review hosted Heather Mac Donald, a conservative author and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, for a talk on her latest book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. The talk sparked a considerable amount of controversy, prompting many to ask why the Review brought in Mac Donald, what we were hoping to accomplish, and what how we as a publication responded to the talk. This article is an attempt to answer those questions, while also reflecting on the broader implications of Mac Donald’s visit—and the community’s reaction. 

Before we get into the talk itself, we want to make a few things clear. First, although The Fenwick Review sponsored Mac Donald’s talk, our invitation does not reflect an endorsement of everything Mac Donald believes (or how she expresses those beliefs). We invited Mac Donald to campus because we hoped that she could spark a productive conversation about the value of diversity, a buzzword that is becoming increasingly prevalent on college campuses. Given that Mac Donald holds degrees from Yale, Stanford, and Cambridge; is a New York Times bestselling author; and is a respected intellectual, we felt like she could make a valuable contribution to a crucial conversation. 

As for the talk itself—we cannot speak on behalf of the publication anymore, but personally, we were not thrilled, and we know we are not alone. Her argument, which she lays out so effectively in her book, was presented in a way that was dry, devoid of most of the statistical evidence that she presents in The Diversity Delusion, and at times even somewhat condescending. To be fair, Mac Donald was fighting a losing battle: half the audience members were on their phones (with their ringers on), and then proceeded to walk out as part of a pre-scheduled protest. Still, Mac Donald kept talking, and her response to the protesters—she urged them to have faith in their own arguments, and to stay and debate her—was commendable. She also made several valuable points throughout the talk, although undeniably faltered during the Q&A, especially when she butchered a question about sexual assault.

So what, exactly, was the argument that Mac Donald was trying to make?

First, we want to make clear what Mac Donald was not saying. She was not saying that minorities do not deserve to go to elite colleges. She was not saying that minorities are not welcome on campus. She was not saying that racism is fake, that people’s oppression is an illusion, or that minorities should not—or are not—welcome on campus.

Here is an oversimplified version of perhaps the most controversial component of Mac Donald’s argument:

Policies like affirmative action stem from the desire to compensate for disparities in opportunity that disproportionally affect minorities. The thought process is that kids from underserved public schools have not had the same educational opportunities as their peers are more privileged, so colleges need to lower their standards when it comes to admitting students from less privileged backgrounds.

This isn’t anything most sane people will deny. Mac Donald herself does not contest the fact that plenty of students, particularly minority students, are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to applying for college, thanks to increasingly segregated school systems. But according to Mac Donald, these policies actually hurt minority students by pushing them into an academic atmosphere they aren’t prepared for.

Before you accuse Mac Donald of racism, just listen. Schools set certain standards for admissions, not to be jerks, but because they want to accept students who can be academically successful at their institutions. Test scores and high school grades can be an indicator of how much one has learned, or how prepared one is for college. Unfortunately, all the data seems to indicate that minority and low-income students do poorer on standardized testing, because of educational inequalities: they simply don’t have the same resources or means of preparing for college as their white peers. In other words, lower SAT scores do not mean that minority students are less intelligent or less worthy of a good education. But if a student has been deprived of updated text books or subjected to overcrowded classrooms led by underpaid teachers, and if this deprivation is reflected in grades and test scores, then how can we reasonably expect these students to be successful when they have to compete against peers who have faced none of the same handicaps? 

Mac Donald’s argument needs to be at least seriously evaluated by all who claim to have the best interest of minority students at heart. It is not the seething, racist rant that some seem to think it was.

Admittedly, aspects of Mac Donald’s talk were unnecessarily inflammatory. She gave a heinous answer, for example, to a question about sexual assault. Still, we would argue that her talk did not merit the absolute pandemonium that it triggered. We have been to plenty of bad—and frankly offensive—Rehm talks in my time here at Holy Cross, and we can’t recall any getting this kind of reaction.

So then what was all the chaos about? Why did hundreds of students walk out? Why have we spent weeks trying to “put out fires”? Why are we getting emails from the Chaplain’s Office (who have no reason to be involved in this) offering to facilitate “conflict mediation” before the talk even happens? Why did we have to do a walk-through with Public Safety in advance? Why does everybody seem to think that Heather Mac Donald is a threat to our campus?

It isn’t because she’s physically imposing (she was one of the most physically non-threatening people we’ve ever met), or because she was brainwashing Holy Cross students to become neo-Nazis (she was not). No—Heather Mac Donald is dangerous because she challenges the dominant progressive narrative. She represents a threat, not to students of color, but to the various deans, directors, and other administrators whose jobs depend on the narrative that Holy Cross, and the typical college campus, is a cesspool of racism and intolerance. And yet the only real intolerance that Mac Donald’s talk exposed was the intolerance of progressives, who couldn’t stand the idea of a conservative scholar getting a platform on campus.

See, the protests at Holy Cross are not an isolated incident. They are part of a larger trend on college campuses where conservative speakers are consistently protested, threatened, heckled, and attacked, and usually called some kind of nasty name. When people first accused Mac Donald of being racist, we disagreed with them, but understood why they might make that accusation. After all, the woman does spend a large chunk of time fighting society’s obsession with diversity. But it turns out that just about every conservative speaker, regardless of whether they talk about race, is derided as racist. Oh, and Mac Donald didn’t actually make a racist argument. As a result, we began to wonder if most of the ire directed at Mac Donald was really due to the fact that she was a conservative intellectual, and these days, there’s nothing more dangerous or offensive than intellectual conservatism.

That’s because, whether we admit it or not, there’s a sort of “Progressive Orthodoxy” that dominates much of society, and in particular, college campuses. Anyone who is even remotely heterodox—anyone who questions dominant thinking about diversity, gender, sexuality, Trump, abortion, or any other controversial issue—is immediately black-listed, canceled, cast out, and called a bigot, a racist, or a neo-Nazi. Not only does this trivialize the evil of actual racism and Nazism, it stifles free speech, cripples society, and undermines any attempt at civil discourse. Instead of intelligently engaging with Heather Mac Donald’s ideas, Holy Cross students, faculty, and staff resorted to ad hominem attacks, genetic fallacies, and straw-manning to deride, mock, and slander. The fact of the matter is that I didn’t agree with everything Heather Mac Donald said either, but we wanted to have a conversation about it. Not a walk-out.

The moral of the story? We have to stop silencing conservatives, labeling heterodoxy as racism, and using “tolerance” as a weapon to bludgeon the supposedly intolerant into silence. If we want to even pretend that we, as a campus, can approach complex and emotionally challenging issues with any level of maturity and open-mindedness, then we cannot get carried away with petty name-calling, character assassination, and cancel culture. (Both sides are guilty of this.)

One final note. White supremacists have a long history of ruthlessly persecuting people of color. But let’s not forget that they also have a history of vicious anti-Semitism and, to a lesser degree, anti-Catholicism. Groups like the KKK hate Jews and Catholics. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t Jews or Catholics who sympathize with neo-Nazis or white supremacists, but it does mean that people should probably think twice before accusing an Orthodox Jew like Ben Shapiro, or an avowedly Catholic publication like The Fenwick Review, of being in league with the very white supremacists who hate us.

Just a thought.

An Analysis of President Trump's Syria Policy

In early October, President Trump made what seemed to most an abrupt decision to withdraw 50 U.S. troops from northern Syria. About 1,000 United States soldiers had been in the area since 2014 fighting against ISIS with the help of the Kurds, who ran terrorist detention centers with the backing of U.S. troops. The prisons held over 10,000 men, and the Kurds also operated camps holding about 70,000 family members displaced by the conflicts. The Kurds served as staunch U.S. allies in containing the terrorists, and the presence of U.S. troops proved beneficial to the Kurds’ safety.

The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world lacking their own state. They primarily reside in southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. Turkey, bordering where many of the Kurds reside, perceive them as an enemy and even label them as “terrorists.”  Despite the animosity between Turkey and the Kurds, the United States allied with the Kurds to fight extremists, even though Turkey is a fellow NATO member. The U.S. presence in Syria prevented the Turks from entering Syria for quite some time. Balancing relations between the two groups has been quite difficult. A few months ago, the United States persuaded the Syrian Kurds to get rid of defenses and soldiers on Turkey’s border in order to appease the Turks.

Turkey hosts about 3.5 million Syrian refugees who fled there around 2013 as a result of the Syrian Civil War. After a call with President Erdogan of Turkey, President Trump called for the withdrawal of troops from the region, claiming that he was fulfilling his campaign promise to end what he perceived to be endless wars. This reasoning, however, is questionable since the troops did not come back to the United States; rather, they were moved to Iraq. The war was not ended––it was simply moved. 

Erdogan was being pressured to solve the refugee crisis, so he decided the best way to solve it was to create a safe zone. He resolved to create a 20-mile safe zone to which the refugees could start returning. This safe zone was to be established in the area that the Kurds occupied, so once President Trump declared that the U.S. would leave the area, they were left in a very vulnerable position––especially after they had been convinced by U.S. to essentially disarm the border. The Kurds felt blindsided by U.S. abandonment and feared for their lives. Vice President Mike Pence was able to negotiate a five-day cease-fire with Erdogan for the Kurds to retreat. Over 150,000 had to flee their homes, and it is estimated that hundreds have died. As a result of the sudden threat to their lives, the Kurds had no choice but to abandon the Islamic State prisons they had been guarding.

President Trump faced fierce bipartisan criticism following his decision to withdraw from the region, with some accusing him of enabling genocide by allowing Turkish military action. About 100 detainees are estimated to have escaped by now––a result that seems averse to ending a war. After all, Al Qaeda prisoners who escaped Iraqi prisons created ISIS. The escaped prisoners in Syria could face a similar outcome if history repeats itself. Trump made sure to take the worst of the detainees out of the prisons in order to ensure they would not escape. This action seems to show that he anticipated prisoners would be able to escape following U.S. withdrawal, which begs the question of why he would do something that could result in such dangerous consequences.

The only possible reason I can think of for why he would betray the Kurds and tarnish the U.S.’s reputation––for being reliable to its allies, that is––is that President Trump was trying to get into President Erdogan’s good graces. Regardless, it’s unfavorable for any president to follow actions that will knowingly permit terrorists to escape from Syrian prisons. And after long-held support and alliance with the Kurds, abandoning our allies in a time of need certainly reflects poorly on our nation as well as on our alliances going forward. The United States left the region knowing that there would be serious repercussions against the Kurds. This seriously undermines our legitimacy as an international force.

This less active role in foreign affairs does not coincide with Trump’s typical active role in the world. By sitting back and simply letting things occur, Trump is not staying consistent with his generally hawkish foreign policy approach. There are two primary approaches to international relations. One is active and plays a diligent role in affairs––which is what the United States typically does––and the other basically lets things happen passively and acts accordingly. President Trump claims that being thousands of miles away from the occurrences prevents the U.S. from being primarily responsible for some of the fallout from the withdrawal. However, this line of thought conflicts with the United States’ common approach, and being far away from the origins and planning of terrorist groups has never stopped the U.S. from acting before. Trump taking an inactive role is inconsistent with the attitude the United States takes and with much of his own foreign policy approach. By taking an inactive role, the U.S. also risks the Kurds allying with unfavorable people such as the Russians and the Assad regime.

Withdrawing from Syria of all places also seems quite sudden. The Kurds have consistently and adequately helped the United States in fighting the Islamic States, and to turn against a reliable ally seems unwise. And to withdraw from what was one of the better-functioning and less aggressive areas containing Islamic terrorism can hardly be looked at as fulfilling a campaign promise; I doubt this is what anyone had in mind. 

There must be some incentive for President Trump to side with Turkey, who seems like an otherwise risky ally. President Erdogan is unpredictable and is not someone who can be trusted. Last January, after his first official meeting with President Trump, Erdogan returned to the Turkish ambassador’s residence in D.C. People were protesting Erdogan and his regime, so he ordered his guards to attack them––on U.S. soil, nonetheless. This does not seem like something a friend of the United States would do. President Trump failed to acknowledge the incident, taking what was an unusual silent stance for him. There must be some reason why he is careful not to upset Erdogan. Perhaps it has something to do with trade, as Turkey and the United States are consistent trading partners.

Nevertheless, abandoning one ally for the sake of appeasing another seems to be poor foreign policy on President Trump’s part. Siding with those who act hostile and adverse to the United States and its values reflects poorly upon the U.S. Abandoning the Kurds, who have been reliable U.S. allies for a regime that remains obstinate, further undermines the U.S. as a trustworthy global power. Jeopardizing America’s reputation among allies is a dangerous move and may prove to be a mistake. To cause something like this to happen, Erdogan must have something that President Trump wants; otherwise, it seems completely nonsensical to make such a large statement by deserting an area that required little attention.

Taking a Side in the Abortion Debate

There's a good chance that a majority of people won't run into many truly controversial subjects while in college, but those who do will find that they should be taken seriously. One must acknowledge the weight of opposing statements relating to the question of abortion: “There is an overwhelming number of people in the United States who actively support murder,” and “there is a large percentage of people in the United States who are trying to repeal women’s rights.” These statements are scary, as well as overly generalized, and that is precisely why they are so compelling. There is a good chance that you strongly agree or disagree with one of these statements. Most importantly, everyone should take a stand and support a side.

Here’s a helpful exercise: think of a controversial topic you support. Then, imagine what would happen if you were wrong. Think of the consequences of what you are supporting. If the first thing that you think is “well, I’m not wrong,” then you’re failing this exercise. Try to ignore any biases and think of a convincing argument for both sides. If this task is as hard for you as it was for me, then there is a good chance you actually are wrong – not necessarily in your conclusion, but at least in the process leading up to it or perhaps some of the key facts. College is the gateway between our childhood and adult life, and while we may have held opinions on these matters in our childhood, there is a strong chance our opinions were underdeveloped and rooted in what we heard rather than what we sincerely believed. Unfortunately, these topics and the way we think about them come with high stakes.

Whether or not abortion should be legal is a highly controversial subject accompanied by lots of moral implications. On one side are pro-choice advocates, with the argument that taking away the right to abortion is taking away the rights women have over their own bodies. On the other side are pro-life advocates, who argue that abortion is the taking of another human’s life. Of course these are just the simplest variations of each side’s argument, and there are certainly some who may not entirely agree with those points, but still defer to one side. The competing subjects at hand are the suppression of rights and the legalization of murder, and we as a society cannot afford to risk making the wrong decision.

It’s becoming more and more common to see someone say something uninformed online or in public, and then get aggressively confronted by the opposing side. This attack helps no one. First off, the aggression causes resentment, which in turn causes stubbornness. Second, it may inspire some bystanders to take a side without truly understanding the complexity of the problem. This sort of attack has the potential to spiral into a vicious loop of both sides looking uninformed, while neither side of the issue is accurately or fairly represented.

We as humans should take a side on the abortion debate because no matter how you look at it, human rights are being violated. It is vitally important that the side of the argument that is correct comes out on top. Sometimes the only reason we are clinging to one side or the other, without real knowledge of the problem, is because someone told us to do so. We have plenty of outside influences and role models, but they don’t always have our or any other human’s best interests at heart. It is our obligation to take as many resources as possible and look at the issue in as many ways as possible. Philosopher René Descartes begins his famous meditations with removing every fact or stance that he has any reason to doubt, then building up to conclusions. We don’t need to do this to the same extreme as Descartes, as he has already proven the existence of humans, but this approach allows us to step back and see the larger picture. We live in the golden age of information. We have access to countless pieces of information available through the Internet, along with countless bits of fabricated and illogical statements masquerading as truth. If you have any reason to doubt something you hear or previously thought, there is no reason not to do something about it. Reflect on it, look it up online, utilize a library. This process will ensure that you are as confident in your position as possible.

You also might be someone who has no opinion either way on the abortion debate; unfortunately, this is probably the worst position one can take. Participation in this debate should be treated similarly to voting, as a civic duty. A society should strive to better itself at all times, and each member’s civic duty is to participate in that very advancement. The abortion debate is directly tied to our Constitution, which states the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Dialogue is needed on a college campus, and if we follow the culture of avoiding the discussion of abortion, then nothing changes. This suppression of the topic does not cause any minds to change. On the contrary, opinions will fester, and only hate will result.

Uninhabitable Discussion

This academic year, the Holy Cross administration decided to have all incoming freshmen - a group whose opinions in the political climate in college are still up in the air - read an appallingly un-academic book that spews controversial science as dogma and goes out of its way to paint a depressing apocalyptic view of the world. It would be impossible to provide a comprehensive refutation of every supposed fact in this work, but instead I would like to explain why The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells is an appallingly unscientific book where facts are replaced by obscure controversial research that he spouts out in the hope of scaring the ill-informed into action. Additionally, I would like to discuss the abhorrent way some of the Holy Cross faculty handled the discussion, in which they endorsed the views in the book wholeheartedly without leaving much room for discussion.

The point of this book is to scare readers into action - that is its whole purpose. Wallace-Wells forges together a make-believe apocalyptic fantasy hellscape where he presents what he sees as a great existential crisis while he professes our impending doom, which is the focus of about half of the book. The longest of the four sections, “Elements of Chaos,” gives a non-stop barrage of separate doomsday scenarios fueled by conflicting statistics that suit that particular scenario to create the most terrifying situation one could imagine. He talks about every natural disaster he could think of whether that is floods, wildfire, intense heat, etc.

Additionally, Wallace-Wells will also take shots at anything or anyone right of Bernie Sanders. At one point, in his section on drowning and floods - in an attempt to inflate perceived magnitude - he uses the Black Sea deluge hypothesis as a reference point, and just so carefully includes a quick sentence about how Noah’s Ark was not an event but rather a fictional story prompted by the deluge itself. He also repeatedly brings up the supposed present-day oppression of people of color without much reason. As a book about climate change, it's hard to see how these other leftist ideas are necessary without some further political agenda beyond just climate change.

Wallace-Wells also occasionally sneaks in certain paragraphs, in an attempt to seem scientific, admitting that climate science is completely unreliable in most cases, which is a nice gesture but completely undermines his primary agenda. In his “Drowning” section, he discusses how it would be foolish to “take any of [these predictions] to the bank.” Wallace-Wells wouldn't bet on any of his own predictions, the same predictions on which his whole book is predicated, even though he presents them as facts to fit into his climate change hellscape narrative. This appears to be a theme of his, in an attempt to try and seem more legitimate as he, earlier in the “Heat Death” section of the novel, called projecting future warming a fool’s game. It would seem that what Wallace-Wells calls foolish is the same thing off of which he bases his entire fantasy world. Additionally, his flip-flopping from statistic to statistic based on different projected degrees of warming from different sources that seem convenient in the moment exposes not only his non-commitment to delivering an accurate prediction of what might happen, but also his commitment to skewing the data in a questionable manner to fit his political agenda.

The problem is not so much that the book is a terrible attempt at disinformation, as that can be easily addressed and rebutted, but that the Holy Cross faculty in charge of the discussion did not bother to address any counterargument, but rather opted to present a partisan charade where manmade change climate change, and the apocalyptic result from it, are presented as fact. The faculty instead decided to focus on what we as students can do to prevent climate change.

Many Holy Cross professors skipped the climate change debate and went straight to the partisan question that they, as partisans, seem to be most focused on. They are interested in how to solve manmade climate change, regardless of whether or not it is real or poses a significant threat to the human race. Though I am in the Divine Cluster in the Montserrat program, I spoke to students in other clusters who shared the same experience. Students in other clusters believe that opinions of the faculty were thrust upon us as mandated truth. At a required Montserrat event, faculty in charge took science as fact, and even invited the leadership of Eco-Action to speak to us for an extended amount of time, giving them an unopposed platform to impose their political opinions on the freshman class. The job of any college faculty is to present the grounds for intellectual discussion on any assigned reading, but instead all we got was a lecture on what to do with the suspected inevitable terror of an apocalyptic world fueled by the Wallace-Wells book.

To be clear, I have no problem with Eco-Action and I am not looking to pick a fight. I may disagree with what they do, but I have no problem with them operating as a student organization. What I do have a problem with is the faculty forcing us to listen to a partisan organization with no contradictory opinion being given the same platform. And to those who would say that Eco-Action isn't partisan, I would like to refer them to their mission statement, which is easily accessible on the Holy Cross website, which makes a clear mention that they work alongside political campaigns for what they refer to as “environmental” progress and supportive of “social justice.” The Holy Cross faculty in a required event, in a required class, gave a platform to a partisan group and endorsed their opinions whole-heartedly. That is my problem.

I am not going to make the same mistake as Wallace-Wells and not give solutions to this problem, which he neglects to do in his book. There is no way to change or fix the past in this situation. After the writing of this article, I will move on and most likely never think of this book or the actions that the faculty took ever again. But to prevent this situation in the future, I would suggest that the subject of climate change ought to be addressed in a way that allows the correct set of ideas to flourish (whether that be on either end of the debate), rather than a monopoly on the platform to speak by those convinced the Earth is in a state of impending turmoil as we supposedly destroy ourselves.

On a final note, just last October, 500 climate scientists wrote a letter to the UN saying that there is no climate emergency and that climate change has not caused any increase in natural disasters, but Wallace-Wells or the Holy Cross faculty would not tell you that. Instead, they would force a malleable group of people to read an unacademic book trying to scare them into having an existential crisis about climate change. The book may very well have been a disguised effort to impose a political opinion on the masses. There was no attempt to hold a discussion around the topic, and in the end it made the situation uninhabitable for those who seek to question what others say and think for themselves.

Illuminating the Murk: The Rise of the Groypers

On campuses across the United States, a toxic movement is rising. This movement centers its ideology around the tenets of identitarian politics, particularly in regard to race. In recent weeks, swarms of individuals have packed question-and-answer sessions of events hosted by conservative speakers, bombarding them with pointed questions about American support for Israel and the racial divide. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not a continuation of the race-baiting agenda that has been a hallmark of the campus left. Instead, the Groyper movement claims itself to be a product of the alt-right. Unless it is opposed, and opposed with calculated intent, the movement stands to irrevocably disfigure the modern conservative movement.

The Groyper movement takes its name from Groyper, an obese illustrated toad with its hands folded under its chin. This meme was commonly utilized as a profile picture by members of the alt-right. The meme has since given its name to the movement in question, which was formed by Nick Fuentes. A former Boston University student and 2017 Charlottesville rally participant, Fuentes has gained prominence after a leader of the conservative organization TPUSA was terminated for associating with him. Fuentes has since declared war on what he and his followers refer to as “Conservative, Inc.” by sending his followers to hijack question and answer sessions at TPUSA events. In particular, the Groypers have targeted TPUSA head Charlie Kirk for his supposedly excessive support of Israel and his openness to gay marriage and immigration.

The Groyper movement threatens to hijack the conservative movement, and give truth to the slanders laid upon conservatives by the left. In addition to attending the infamous Charlottesville Rally, Fuentes is also a thinly disguised white nationalist. Among his more recent comments, he joked about Holocaust denial by comparing Cookie Monster baking cookies in ovens to Jews burned in crematoria and referring to Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh as a “race traitor” who “works for Jews,” a blatantly anti-semitic attack against Walsh’s boss, Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro. Though Fuentes only brands himself as someone who is “America First,” it is evident that he is a racist and anti-semite whose views stand to poison conservatism if he gains sufficient popularity.

However, those who have attempted to stop Fuentes have merely served to fuel the credibility of his cause. In response to the beginning of Fuentes’ campaign, various members of the conservative movement have sought to shut out his views. On Twitter, conservative radio show host and former Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka questioned why Fuentes was given verification status, calling for Fuentes to be removed from social media. This only fueled Fuentes’ cause against the so-called ‘Conservative Inc.,’ as he accused those who called for his removal to be practicing the same form of tech censorship that the conservative movement opposes. Furthermore, the hypocrisy expressed by Kirk, Gorka, and other figures drove many members of TPUSA to resign, despite the fact that they wholeheartedly opposed Fuentes’s views. If Fuentes and the Groypers are to be stopped, use of censorship is out of the question.

In order to prevent the Groyper movement from seizing control of the conservative movement, it is essential that perspective of the Groypers be debated and debunked in the public square. Such a premise may seem unpalatable given the views Fuentes and his followers hold. Indeed, their views are undoubtedly detestable. However, as previously illustrated, silencing the Groypers is simply not an option. Any attempt to smother the movement will only serve to fuel the resolve of the Groypers to continue their campaign, as well as further their narrative of hypocritical censorship from the conservative establishment. Instead, a proficient debater within the conservative movement should agree to the request so often demanded by Groypers: debate Nick Fuentes. A competent debater should be easily able to refute Groyper talking points. Such a debate would also remove any possibility of falling back on the censorship defense, and serve to strip away the mystique that enforced silence lends to the Groypers. Shining light to drive away the murk of the Groypers would serve the conservative movement far better than turning aside from it and declaring that it does not belong to us, and thus allowing it to spread.

The Groyper movement and the method by which they must be addressed serve as valuable lessons to the conservative movement. The rise of Fuentes and the Groypers demonstrates that the conservative movement must never be complacent. Oftentimes, the conservative movement has focused its attention on the radicalism of the left, thus unintentionally turning away from the potential rise of radicalism within our own movement. Going forward, the conservative movement must be vigilant to prevent others like Fuentes and his Groypers from gaining traction. Additionally, conservatives must be careful to avoid violating our own principles when addressing individuals with extreme viewpoints. The Groyper movement only draws strength when conservative figures call for Fuentes and his compatriots to be removed from social media, as such a reaction merely serves to paint the conservative movement as hypocrites, and the Groypers as victims. In addressing the Groypers and any future fringe elements, it is necessary to repudiate these unconservative values while simultaneously holding true to our own.

In Support of Israel, Our Greatest Ally

Israel has been a key strategic partner and close ally of the United States for decades, and has remained committed to the maintenance of a free, liberal-democratic political system in the face of extreme odds. The lone democracy in a region of tyranny deserves the utmost support of the United States, yet there is a cohort of Americans who have deep reservations about Israel, most notably over the Israel-Palestine conflict. The situation is undoubtedly complicated, and it has eluded resolution by some of the world’s best statesmen and women. However, these complications do not justify the increasingly militant anti-Israel sentiment arising on the American and European left. There is an excessive preoccupation with the perceived evil of the Israelis towards the supposedly oppressed Palestinians, and there are growing calls for radical, and in some cases anti-Semitic, policy change. I intend to outline the case for why Israel, rather than deserving our condemnation, deserves our full-fledged support, and why the much-lauded Two State Solution is simply not an option as the situation currently stands. It is essential that the circumstances are clarified, and that the left-wing anti-Israel (and increasingly anti-Semitic) attitude be confronted. 

I want to be perfectly clear before entering into the argument: when referring to the ‘Palestinians,’ ‘Arabs,’ or ‘Gazans’ that is in reference to the governing authorities, not to the general population. To tar the entirety of the population of Palestine (or Israel for that matter) would be absurd and wrong. The majority of the Palestinian people are good, well-meaning people, and deserve the utmost respect. What is being criticized are the government, the radicals, the criminals, and the violent. There are flaws in Israel as well, and those will be noted.

The Palestinians are not a separate ethnic group, they are Arabs like those in Jordan, Syria, or Egypt. Palestine was never a country; what tends to be defined as ‘Palestine’ today are simply the regions that Israel took over in the previous wars, be it Gaza or the West Bank. Israel can not be ‘occupying’ those territories, as there are no competing claims to them by any other legitimate country. Therefore the rhetorical tricks Israel’s critics use to try to tar Israel as an occupying power that is somehow violating international law are most often absurd. In the same vein, the idea that the vast majority of Israeli ‘settlements’ are illegal holds little water. Most of the settlements are simply areas where Jewish people live and have existed for many years. While there are some areas that are likely improper, the preponderance of settlements are legitimate. 

To better understand the current situation between Israel and Palestine, it is worth analyzing the situation in the two Palestinian regions that effectively govern themselves: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The West Bank is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is currently led by President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has been in power since his initial election in 2005, and has refused to allow any elections since then, which should put the lie to any pretensions of an existing Palestinian democracy. Abbas has also been quoted as saying he does not want any Israelis present in any Palestinian nation, meanwhile 20% of Israel is Arab, and Israel has no pretensions of ejecting them. According to Human Rights Watch, the government of the Palestinian Authority routinely engages in the arbitrary arrests, detention, and torture of its citizens. The PA also makes no substantial effort to stamp out widespread support for terrorism. Towns in the West Bank routinely celebrate terrorists and their heinous acts, and go so far as to name streets after them. In 2010, a street on which the house for the President of Palestine was to be built was named after a terrorist, Yihyeh Ayyash, who was responsible for the deaths of over 100 Israelis. In 2015, the town of Surda-Abu Qash named a street after the terrorist Muhannad Halabi, who was also given the distinction of an honorary degree from the Palestinian Authority Bar Association. Most recently, in 2019, a street in Bruqin in the West Bank was named after another terrorist and murderer of two Israelis, Omar Abu Lila. If that is not enough, while Palestinians are quite safe in Israel, Israelis, and Jews in particular, are in serious danger should they enter Palestinian territory. Around the city of Hebron, there are large red signs declaring the danger posed to any Israeli should they exit the highway. If the Palestinian government is looking to convince the world of its worthiness for statehood, its behavior in the West Bank does it no favors.

The Gaza Strip, however, is far worse. The Israelis took the major step of withdrawing from the Gaza Strip completely in 2006, including the removal of all Jewish settlers in the area.This was precisely what the Palestinian activists demanded, and what they now demand for the West Bank. Rather than providing an exemplary case of what a free Palestinian state could do, Gaza became a poster-child for a failed state. Since 2007, the Strip has been governed by the Iran-supported terrorist group Hamas. Hamas explicitly denies the right of Israel to exist, and calls for military action against the State of Israel. As if to back up this goal, Hamas sponsors summer camps in Gaza where males from 15-18 years old are put through military-style training, including live-fire. According to a Hamas official, the intention is to prepare “for the liberation of Palestine.” Similar to the PA, Human Rights Watch documents the consistent use of arbitrary detention and torture by Hamas authorities. Gaza has also been a major player in the incessant terrorist attacks on Israel. Due to the trouble, both Israel and Egypt have maintained an effective blockade on the territory since Hamas took control in 2007.  Since 2018 alone, there have been over a thousand rockets fired into Israel from Gaza. In November 2018, Hamas fired 300 rockets into Israel, compelling hundreds of civilians in Israel to find cover. In May 2019, Hamas again fired upwards of 250 rockets into Israel with the same effect, but this time resulting in the death of a civilian. Most recently, on 13 November 2019, after the killing by Israeli forces of the leader of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad that Hamas gives refuge to in Gaza, Hamas fired over 360 rockets into Israel. Further, along the border with Gaza, Hamas, with the help of Iran (which has been providing weaponry and logistical support), consistently build terror tunnels into Israel, to smuggle in arms and terrorists. To think that any rational actor would or should even begin to contemplate the creation of a Palestinian state after the disaster of Gaza is simply absurd.

In 2018-2019, there were major protests along the Gaza-Israel border, which resulted in nearly 200 deaths, and Israel was roundly criticized internationally for its use of force. But it is important to look at the situation in its context. The protests originated in Gaza to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel, and was aimed at retaking the land that Israel occupied. The Israelis had endured two devastating Intifatas before, innumerable terrorist attacks, and during the protests themselves, dozens of fire kites were sent over the border, setting aflame Israeli farmland. Thousands of Gazan protestors wielding slingshots, Molotov cocktails, stones, and other weapons charged the border fence multiple times. It would be ridiculous to contend that the IDF soldiers should have simply allowed them to storm the fence and endanger the lives of Israeli citizens. The IDF is one of the most effective and humane militaries in the world, and it takes extreme efforts to avoid unnecessary casualties. There may have been particular situations where excessive force was used, and those specific cases should be condemned, but those mistakes were the outliers, not the norm. Of course, much of the media took up Hamas’ narrative of ‘peaceful protests’ and an ‘unacceptable’ Israeli response. They repeatedly pointed to the number of youth casualties that occurred as evidence of Israeli malpractice, but fail to recognize that it was Hamas and the protest’s organizers that allowed them to be at the front of the protests. Hamas is well known for using innocent civilians as human shields, and there were many reports of them moving youth and women to the front lines in an attempt to make any IDF response far more difficult.

With the situation in the Palestinian-governed territories outlined, it should be clear why the Israelis deserve the support of the United States and its allies. But it is also worth noting the values that Israel itself offers. Israel is the only liberal-democratic nation in the Middle East, and provides the full range of freedoms that that entails. Its citizens are free to worship as they please, whether they are Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. In fact, Israel is the only country in the region in which the Christian population over the past century has held relatively firm. And contrary to the belief that Israel oppresses its Muslim minority, the Israeli government actually bars Jews from praying at their most holy site, The Temple Mount, which in Islam is known as the Dome of the Rock. Additionally, the Joint List, the exclusively Arab bloc in the Israeli Knesset, holds 13 seats. Beyond religious minorities, Israel provides civil rights for many other groups that are traditionally persecuted or oppressed in the Middle East. It is the only country in the region that actually provides full civil protections for homosexuals, unlike countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia that are known to execute LGBT citizens. However, to present the full story, it is also important to note the failures of Israel. There are documented cases where Israel has arbitrarily arrested many under the auspices of ‘secret evidence,’ which violates the individual’s right to know what crime he or she is being charged of. There are also cases where Israel has been credibly accused of using positional torture, which involves forcing prisoners to be in painful positions for extended periods of time. Human Rights Watch did not mention any incidents of torture by Israel in its World Report 2019 on Israel, however.  While the law and civil liberties are respected the vast majority of the time in Israel, there have been exceptions. These cases should not be excused, and are entirely contrary to the values Israel espouses and largely adheres to. 

While it would be narcissistic to try to propose any serious solution to this long-standing problem, there are some basic points that can be made. Before there can be any Palestinian state, the Palestinian authorities must halt all terrorist activity, including the glorification of terrorists. Both the PA and Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist (which the PA tacitly does, but Hamas certainly does not), and stop supporting violence against the Jewish state. Hamas must cut all ties with Iran and squelch the network of terrorist activity in its borders, as must the PA work harder to break the back of the terrorists in the West Bank. Any Palestinian state must be democratically governed, with free elections, an independent judiciary, and the full array of civil liberties. Both the PA and Hamas must accept the entirety of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, for the city will not be divided. An arrangement must be made for the guaranteed protection of Jews in any Palestinian state. Finally, both Israel and any Palestinian state must allow for free travel between each state for family visits, religious pilgrimages, or other valid reasons, subject to security procedures. 

Within this basic framework, there is a viable path to a Palestinian state, but at the moment these requirements are simply not being fulfilled. It is unrealistic to expect Israel to even begin to contemplate accepting a Palestinian state when the Palestinian territories that exist now are in such awful condition, and when hundreds of attacks originate from them every year. Israel has made numerous attempts at peace, and by and large, the Palestinians have proven unwilling to pursue any of them. 

To tie this back to the US political situation, it is important to address the growing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views on the American far-left. There is a swell in support on the left for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement in the United States, which is by and large an anti-Semitic movement. To be clear, the policy itself is not anti-Semitic, nor are all those who support it. The BDS movement is meant to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, Israeli companies, and Israeli products for alleged human rights abuses among other issues towards the Palestinians. In a vacuum, that argument would be as acceptable as any other, albeit based on an incomplete, generally overblown, and one-sided perspective. But nothing in politics can be considered in a vacuum. If the argument is that Israel should be boycotted because of alleged human rights abuses, than the same should be applied to China (which has over 1.2 million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps and regularly persecutes dissidents), Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and so forth. The fact that most BDS supporters are silent on that front leaves their motives in question. If they are unwilling to equally apply their principles, then there has to be some other common denominator to the problem. The only thing that makes Israel unique from every other country is its Jewish religious and ethnic makeup. Again, that does not mean all BDS supporters are anti-Semites, but it does mean that those who support the BDS movement should think long and hard about why they do. Beyond BDS, the increasing acceptance of anti-Semitic rhetoric on the American far-left regarding Israel is deeply concerning. When two sitting members of congress can get away with blatantly anti-Semitic remarks without much more than a belated slap on the wrist and still remain icons of the left-wing, there is reason for worry. Israel deserves America’s support in its endeavors. Of course, any support can never be all-encompassing, but it never has been. As America’s most reliable ally, and ranking among the free nations of the world, Israel is a shining light in a region beset by darkness. The anti-Israel ideals that are permeating the American left-wing must be confronted, for to sit by is to be complacent in the attempted undermining and destruction of the only state where Jews are guaranteed to live freely and safe from persecution. Freedom and liberty are not too much to ask for.

The Eternal Guardian of the Future Graduates

Life as a young adult can seem like a never-ending series of changes, some moments more enjoyable than the more tumultuous others. With the passage of freshman, sophomore, and junior year—and the first semester of senior year nearly complete—my heart calls to mind the lines of the great poet Dante: “This mountain is such that even at the beginning below it is tedious, but the higher one goes the less it wearies” (Purgatorio IV, 88-90). Will life get easier upon graduating and finally surmounting the mountains of readings and homework involved in undergraduate studies? On the other hand, I also recall the many blessings my friends and teachers provided me over the last three and a half years at Holy Cross to think critically and contemplate what makes a good life. These gifts instill in me a great hope for the future. Upon graduating, will I set my eyes upon a “Sweet hue of oriental sapphire,” one “gathering in the serene face of the sky” (Purgatorio I, 13-15)? Will I find a place to fully use my talents and one day find rest?

Possibly. However, God announces in the Book of Genesis to the fallen Adam that “In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, til thou return to the ground” (Genesis 3: 19). Life will be challenging. People inexorably experience sorrow and melancholy following the loss of the persons and goods they encounter and enjoy in the here and now, the things of which cannot abide in our world forever. Only their effects can live on within us as we traverse onwards on our journeys within the cosmos until one day entering, hopefully, a lasting home in the arms of Christ. Fortunately, God promised that “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth / And all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3: 5-6). Christ calms the storm of life: the seething waters and howling winds, the deficiencies and excesses (Luke 8: 23-24). Scripture also encourages us further to “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, ” glorify God, and experience uninhibited joy and thanksgiving (Ephesians 6: 11). God mans the parapet of both our physical and spiritual protection.

Due to our limitations, we cannot traverse this life alone, a reality evidenced in history and literature. We must depend on and ask others and ultimately God for help. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the whimsical and unfallen Tom Bombadil—the master of nature—sings in response to Frodo’s call for aid a command to the demonic Barrow-wight imprisoning the ring bearer and his fellow Hobbits:

Get out, you old wight! Vanish in the sunlight! Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing, / Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains! / Come never here again! Leave your barrows empty!

Indeed, the Barrow-wight departed like an Olympian in the 100-meter dash after hearing the starting gun! Like Tom, Christ wins over any imprisonment and despair in times of ultimate trial. God uncompromisingly protects our souls. Thus, we should foster great hope that our future holds for us good things and blessings that adversity cannot withhold from us. Despite the apparent dictates of our environments, we can fully develop our talents in prayer and service to God and neighbor.     

For example, within the KGB’s dreaded Lubyanka prison in Moscow, the Jesuit missionary Fr. Walter Ciszek—from Shenandoah, Pennsylvania—came to the epiphany that “religion, prayer, and love of God do not change reality, but they give it a new meaning.” He then added, “In Lubianka I grew firmer in my conviction that whatever happened in my life was nothing else than a reflection of God’s will for me. And he would protect me” (With God in Russia, 159). A Servant of God, who spent over a decade in prison and the Gulag in Siberia, Ciszek witnessed to the Gospel against all adversity. The story of his life reveals that God will never abandon His children despite their collective shortcomings and brokenness. Placing one’s trust in the immutable, eternal, and omnipotent One, the Savior, opens a triumphant reservoir of grace that provides us courage and strength to do God’s will. Such a life in Christ provides a firm foundation of meaning that cannot be swept away.

In short, God desires His people to enjoy an abundance of life. Thus, upon graduating, there will be more joy, the continuation of friendships and the beginning of new ones, along with the witnessing and participation in the creation of new life. Sadly, we get to know these aspects of the divine only in revelatory glimpses due to changes amidst the passage of time. Although all material things pass away at some point in this life, faith provides a great hope for eternal communion in heaven with the Fullness of the true, good, and beautiful, the angels, and our fellow human travelers on Earth. Thank God!

Letters from Europe: Introduction

As The Fenwick Review’s newly appointed foreign correspondent, I’d like to introduce myself and the reasons that led me to take the pen, and in passing, offer a few words on the topics I would like to discuss in 2020. 

Ever since graduating in 2006 I have stayed in close contact with Prof. Schaefer from the Political Science department whose classes on political thought I attended throughout my senior year.

In the course of one of our recent email exchanges in which Prof. Schaefer mentioned the Review’s continued publication, I playfully offered to act as a self-styled foreign correspondent, an offer immediately met with enthusiasm and encouragement.

As few weeks and several e-mail exchanges later, the Review editors and I agreed that I submit an article in The Fenwick Review’s last 2019 edition.

Ironically, I barely read the Review as a student at HC, nor did I read much of the Crusader (now The Spire) for that matter. My connection with HC is fairly dim, I didn’t attend all four required years, rarely went to any sporting events and aside from my favorite Holy Cross tea mug, don’t own anything with the color purple.

However, the time spent on the hill left a remarkable imprint on my life and it is my wish, via these letters from Europe I hope to send, not only to share some views and impressions of current events but also to give back to the HC community a symbolic and humble piece of the mind it helped create.

To this day, walking down the aisle of the old Fenwick building or those of the Dinand library count as the most privileged moments of my life, when as a young man (and a very average student at that) I was given the possibility of studying the great works of western civilization with mentors who had dedicated their life to pursuing knowledge and sharing it with others.

No modesty is spared when saying that studying Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau and Tocqueville left a durable imprint on how I view the world and accompany me to this day, thirteen years later.

I must warn the regular reader of the Review: I am not an ideologue and will not reason within the confined canons of a certain political dogma. As a foreign born American holding both American and German passports and currently living in Paris, my political orientation whilst conservative may still keep a liberal or social democrat streak in it.

Since I first spoke with the Review staff several months ago, I’ve debated what to write about and have come to narrow down a few topics which I hope to address in the upcoming 2020 Fenwick Review publications:

The Fall of the Berlin wall, 30 years after.
2019 marked the 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. 2020 marks the 30-year anniversary of the slow and complicated integration of East Germany and former Soviet block countries into the so-called free market economy. I’m not going to dive into specificities of economic and political transition theory. More so, I will offer an account of what I have observed at hand of my wife and her family. Born in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine and raised in East Berlin, she experienced first-hand a change of systems. Her experience with planned Soviet economy and free-market capitalism and the European Union are the source of much debate at home.

European press coverage of the American elections.
This topic was easy to choose. While less nuanced than former elections, reading European coverage of American presidential elections is one of my favorites.

European identity and immigration
A much more complex topic, but one I am confronted with on a daily basis living and often traveling to large European capitals. The Syrian refugee crisis, south-to-north migration and post-colonial ties make European countries, Germany and France in particular, prone to intense debates about what constitutes European identity.

Mystery Interview
Conscious that I am writing for a conservative newspaper published for a liberal arts student body at a Jesuit College, I would like to interview a Jesuit scholar in Paris and discuss the state of education in France and its particular flavor of secularism, also called “Laïcité.”