Eleonora Roosevelt prezentująca Deklarację Praw Człowieka

ONZ – toksyczna jubilatka

Andrzej Koraszewski

Jeszcze w Jałcie ustalono, że potrzebna jest organizacja kontrolująca świat i że w tej organizacji Związek Radziecki ma mieć trzy głosy, a nie jeden. Tak więc na początek wśród państw założycieli był ZSRR, a osobno radziecka republika Ukraina i radziecka republika Białoruś. Dalej było już z górki. Uzgodniona w Jałcie strefa wpływów ZSRR oznaczała utworzenie krajów socjalistycznych, które w ONZ głosowały jednolicie. Należało jeszcze uzbroić ruchy narodowo-wyzwoleńcze, wzmocnić ruchy antyamerykańskie i droga do pełnej dominacji w tej wspaniałej organizacji była otwarta.

Nie, nie wszystko szło jak z płatka. Zachód długo opierał się przeciwko przyjęciu do ONZ Chińskiej Republiki Ludowej. Jednak przy obsadzie ważnych stanowisk, a przede wszystkim fotela Sekretarza Generalnego ONZ, blok radziecki radził sobie coraz lepiej.

Oficjalnie ONZ została powołana do życia 24 października 1945 roku. Jej głównym celem miało być zapobieganie konfliktom zbrojnym oraz walka o prawa człowieka. Nic dziwnego, że po osiemdziesięciu latach organizacja chwali się, że zapobiegła niezliczonym wojnom, a jej siły pokojowe dokonały cudów. Nie ma listy tych wojen, którym ONZ zapobiegła, a dokonania sił pokojowych wzbudzają pusty śmiech, ujawniając astronomiczne koszty, skrajny brak woli użycia siły i (nierzadko) współpracę z agresorami (plus korupcję i przestępczość żołnierzy tych sił).

Zapytałem młodego politologa o nazwisko Kurta Waldheima – nigdy nie spotkał tego nazwiska (albo przeoczył je w trakcie nauki). Ktokolwiek interesuje się historią ONZ, powinien na to nazwisko zwrócić szczególną uwagę. Związek Radziecki niesłychanie silnie forsował jego wybór na stanowisko Sekretarza Generalnego ONZ w 1971 roku. Czy i ile KGB wiedziało o jego nazistowskiej przeszłości? CIA wiedziała, że ten austriacki prawnik był oficerem Wehrmachtu, ale wszystko wskazuje na to, że dokładniejszych badań przed jego wyborem nie przeprowadzono. Trudno o taką lekkomyślność podejrzewać KGB. Jak dotąd nie znaleziono dokumentów potwierdzających, że strona radziecka miała pełną wiedzę o nazistowskiej przeszłości tego polityka, ale intensywne zabiegi, żeby właśnie ten człowiek został Sekretarzem Generalnym ONZ, wskazują, że albo mogli go szantażować, albo i bez szantażu robił właśnie to, co chcieli. ZSRR zablokował znacznie bardziej neutralną kandydaturę fińskiego kandydata Maxa Jakobsona. Wielki skandal w związku z nazistowską przeszłością Waldheima wybuchł dopiero po zakończeniu jego pracy w ONZ. W 1986 roku amerykański prawnik Eli Rosenbaum ujawnił całą prawdę w książce Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up („Zdrada: nieopowiedziana historia śledztwa i zatuszowania sprawy Kurta Waldheima”). Wielu zastanawiało się nad pytaniem, czy sami Austriacy znali prawdę. Tego z pewnością też nie wiemy, wiemy jednak, że mimo jej ujawnienia Waldheim wygrał wybory prezydenckie w swoim kraju.

Nie sama przeszłość Kurta Waldheima jest tu jednak najbardziej istotna, a sposób sprawowania przez niego funkcji Sekretarza Generalnego ONZ.

Kiedy zakładano ONZ, liczba państw członkowskich wynosiła niewiele ponad 50. Kiedy Waldheim został Sekretarzem Generalnym, było już 132 państwa członkowskie, z czego większość była klientami ZSRR. Były to dyktatury, kraje notorycznie łamiące prawa człowieka i pod przewodem ZSRR wykorzystujące tę organizację do tuszowania swojej przestępczej działalności. Nic dziwnego, że to za czasów sprawowania najwyższej funkcji przez Waldheima podjęto w 1975 roku rezolucję zrównującą syjonizm z rasizmem. Rezolucja została zaproponowana przez Ugandę Idi Amina, ale dziś wiemy, że za sznurki pociągał ówczesny szef KGB Jurij Andropow. Rozkład głosów podczas głosowania nad tą rezolucją pokazywał wyraźnie rozkład sił w ONZ (72 głosy za, 35 przeciw i 32 wstrzymujące się).

Od początku lat siedemdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku Organizacja Narodów Zjednoczonych jest demokratycznym stowarzyszeniem państw funkcjonujących w dramatycznej sprzeczności z Kartą ONZ.

Co prawda, po upadku ZSRR tamtą rezolucję uznano za haniebną i w grudniu 1991 roku anulowano, jednak sama organizacja nie tylko nie zmieniła swojego charakteru, ale jej degeneracja postępowała nadal, nasilając się w obecnym stuleciu. Chorobliwa koncentracja uwagi na Izraelu osiągnęła poziom histerii podczas konferencji w Durbanie w 2001 roku. Była widoczna, kiedy ONZ poczuła się w roku 2006 zmuszona do zastąpienia Komisji Praw Człowieka ONZ Radą Praw Człowieka ONZ, co okazało się wyłącznie zabiegiem dekoracyjnym, gdyż przy tym składzie państw członkowskich ta nowa Rada mogła być tylko jeszcze bardziej antysemicka niż Komisja.

Antyizraelskie działania ONZ przyjęły formę wręcz kabaretową. Nie może być inaczej, gdyż w przeciwnym przypadku należałoby zająć się notorycznym naruszaniem praw człowieka przez decydującą w ONZ większość. W tej sytuacji wszystkie ważne stanowiska w ONZ obsadzane są przez ludzi zdecydowanych odwracać wzrok od faktycznych zbrodni i nastawionych na nieustanne polowanie na Żydów.

W osiemdziesiąt lat po założeniu ONZ organizacja ta zajmuje się niemal wyłącznie Izraelem, lwia większość domaga się natychmiastowego zawieszenia broni w Gazie i uratowania Hamasu. Karta ONZ straciła jakiekolwiek znaczenie, a Andropow śmieje się zza grobu.

Sytuacja jest tak tragiczna, że prezydent Trump dał do zrozumienia, że USA może się z tej organizacji wycofać. Oczywiście taka możliwość nie istnieje, ponieważ Rada Bezpieczeństwa ONZ jest organem, który stanowi prawo międzynarodowe, więc w sytuacji, w której Francja i Wielka Brytania nie mają żadnego kręgosłupa moralnego, cała inicjatywa pozostałaby w rękach Rosji i Chin. (Alternatywą jest radykalne zmniejszenie finansowania, ponieważ obecnie to głównie USA finansuje tę z gruntu antyamerykańską instytucję.)

Po osiemdziesięciu latach ONZ jest dokładnym przeciwieństwem tego, co zamierzali pomysłodawcy tego projektu.

Antisemites are trying to hijack Charlie Kirk’s legacy

Jonathan S. Tobin

Attendees pray during the public memorial service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Sept. 21, 2025. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images.

It turns out that Charlie Kirk was one of those seminal figures in our culture and politics whose impact will be greater in death than in life. In the two weeks since his assassination at Utah Valley University, the magnitude of the reaction to his passing likely surprised many of his political opponents as well as some of his admirers.

The enormous outpouring of emotion on the political right in response to his shocking murder was matched only by the vitriol hurled at his memory coming from some on the left.

That, in turn, fueled a backlash on the left that has cost some people, such as Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, their jobs. It also put a hold on ABC late-night comedy show host Jimmy Kimmel, who was taken off the air for a week. These two individuals, along with many others, were guilty not only of insensitivity but of using their prominent perches to spread misinformation about Kirk and the assassination. Their fate and the way others who posted their contempt for Kirk on social media have been singled out for opprobrium has created a second backlash—this time coming from the left, complaining about the way that the wave of grief for Kirk has called into question the free speech rights of his opponents.

Tolerance for antisemitism

Even as the battle for Kirk’s legacy has become the centerpiece of a renewed and even more bitter edition of the same culture war that has been dividing right and left in the last decade, one aspect of this controversy seems to be exacerbating another ongoing crisis. The debate about what Kirk thought and who killed him—and why—has also become a new inflection point in the surge of antisemitism that has been spreading across the United States since the Hamas-led Palestinian attacks on Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson pivoted immediately after the murder to claim that Kirk, a steadfast friend and defender of Israel, was souring on the Jewish state, as well as on the brink of joining him and other antisemites in their opposition to the war on Hamas. As other extremists on the internet were floating conspiracy theories about Israel being behind Kirk’s murder, the even more extreme Jew-hater Candace Owens has been spreading claims that prominent Jews were seeking to “blackmail” the activist over his alleged anti-Israel tendencies.

Carlson, who has become increasingly open about his hatred for Israel and the Jews—platforming anyone who will attack both it and Holocaust denial—was given a prominent speaking slot, alongside Kirk’s widow, Erika, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other members of the administration at the massive memorial service for Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. That he was there at all, let alone using his time to vaguely invoke deicide charges against Jews, was disturbing. But it also spoke volumes about the troubling fact that Carlson has managed to maintain his status as a legitimate conservative thought leader, as well as the way tolerance for his antisemitism may become part of the complicated legacy of Kirk’s free-speech absolutism.

The furor over ABC’s suspension of the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show has been a remarkable, yet illuminating, example of the hypocritical nature of most discussions about free speech.

Kimmel was guilty of a gobsmacking example of misinformation when he declared during an opening monologue on Sept. 15 that Kirk’s killer was a fellow MAGA conservative activist. By then, it was already clear that the assassin was someone on the political left who was likely influenced by Kirk’s opposition to gender ideology, in addition to the activist’s criticism of the transgender movement’s political and social impact on society.

That appalling comment sparked anger from a broad range of Americans and threats from affiliates to drop the Kimmel show from their ABC stations. ABC acted quickly to shut his show down rather than be forced to defend Kimmel and lose revenue when local stations refused to air it.

Comments from Trump and Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, in which they seemed to be demanding that Kimmel be fired, led some to the not entirely unreasonable conclusion that what was happening was the result of government pressure to censor views the administration opposed.

Kimmel’s fate was an example of what happens when an entertainer creates a political mess that his employers want no part of. But thanks to Trump and Carr, he instead became, along with fellow late-night comedy show host Stephen Colbert, whose show was canceled by CBS due to chronically bad ratings and epic financial losses, a martyr to free speech.

Late-night politics

This is as absurd as it is hypocritical.

For the last decade or more, all of the broadcast networks’ late-night comedy shows have hewed to a consistently partisan line in which the genre’s former nonpartisan approach to humor was replaced by rigid adherence to liberal ideology. For years, all of them—even the less political NBC show hosted by Jimmy Fallon, who was shamed and forced to subsequently apologize for having hosted Trump and giving him the usual softball treatment accorded Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign—have become daily in-kind contributions to the Democratic Party.

The result is that they have become consistently unfunny, coupled with declining viewership ratings. As a result, these shows have become dead weight to the networks, something that has been amply illustrated by the fact that the conservative alternative to them—the “Gutfeld!” show on the Fox News Channel—has been consistently beating all of them, despite having a potentially smaller audience since it is a cable rather than broadcast network.

That doesn’t excuse efforts by the administration to intimidate its critics. But you don’t have to be a Republican or a fan of Greg Gutfeld’s brand of humor to recognize that the rationale for ABC, NBC and CBS to drop the left-wing ideology and get back into the comedy business hasn’t much to do with anything Trump might say. Instead, it is a function of the fact that they are all businesses that are supposedly interested in appealing to all Americans, rather than just the less than 50% of them who vote for the Democrats and/or hate Trump or Charlie Kirk.

More than that, the same people who are whining about the fate of Kimmel or even Colbert had no sympathy when politics derailed the careers of entertainers who ran afoul of left-wing sensibilities.

In 2018, comedian Roseanne Barr—a onetime ardent leftist who had migrated to what seemed at times to be the political right—was fired from the successful reboot of her eponymous situation comedy for a tweet in which she attacked Obama administration figure Valerie Jarrett, a key figure behind its appeasement of Iran, with what many considered to be racist imagery.

In 2021, former mixed martial arts athlete turned actress Gina Carano was fired from the “Star Wars” series where she had starred because she questioned the 2020 presidential election results, and then compared the Biden administration and internet moguls’ silencing of conservative voices to Nazi persecutions of the Jews.

In both cases, nobody currently screaming about the end of free speech was defending the right of Barr or Carano to say controversial, insensitive or even deeply offensive things without losing their livelihoods. Instead, the liberal late-night comedy show hosts, as well as liberal opinion, joined the gang tackle of these figures and thought it entirely appropriate that they should be canceled, shunned and run out of the public square.

This time, it’s certain conservatives who are playing the “free speech for me but not for thee” card.

In death, Kirk’s appeal seems to have transcended the world of conservative activism in which he played a key role in the right’s pushback against woke ideology and helped re-elect Trump in 2024. His murder has focused a broad swath of the public on the admirable example he offered the country of someone who was equally committed to conservative ideas, while also being deeply religious and dedicated to promoting dialogue across the partisan divide. The fact that he was shot and killed while engaging in open political dialogue underneath his trademark “Prove Me Wrong” sign has only burnished his memory in the minds of more than just those who supported his Turning Point USA group.

Hijacking a legacy

That’s why the attempt on the part of Israel-haters to hijack his legacy is so troubling and has the potential to legitimize antisemitic tropes into mainstream conservative thinking.

Carlson clearly understands the stakes involved in controlling how the public thinks about Kirk.

Kirk was the embodiment of the pendulum of public opinion that is swinging back to an embrace of traditional values, faith and belief in Western civilization from the excesses of the woke leftism that seemed to have an unshakable grip on society after the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020.

His distaste for the cancel culture of the left was heartfelt and popular. Yet opposition to the silencing of traditional conservatives and others who dissented from leftist orthodoxies about race, Trump, illegal immigration, gender ideology and abortion ought not to obligate one to support the platforming of every opinion.

For Carlson, Owens and their acolytes, their embrace of anti-Israel and antisemitic tropes in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks caused them to align themselves in sympathy with the red-green alliance of leftists and Islamists who seek to target Jews on campuses. The way extremists on the left and right come together on antisemitism is nothing new. But it put them in the uncomfortable position of conservatives opposing the Trump administration’s pro-Israel foreign policy, as well as its laudable campaign to rid college campuses of the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion that is the engine of 21st-century Jew-hatred.

That is why it’s so important for them to tie Kirk to their campaign to legitimize the mainstreaming of post-Oct. 7 antisemitism.

Should we believe the claims made in a Carlson podcast—in which Carlson assembled a lineup of antisemitic figures like “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams, Greek Orthodox priest Father Josiah Trenham, left-wing commentator Cenk Uygur and podcaster Megyn Kelly, a recent convert to Israel-bashing—the week after the assassination about Kirk undergoing a change of heart about Israel or that he hated Netanyahu?

There’s no reason to trust anything that he or his cronies say about Israel, especially their claims of pro-Israel donors trying to bribe or blackmail Kirk to back Israel and distance himself from Carlson. As legal columnist and podcaster Josh Hammer—a stalwart defender of Israel—has said, he was on the phone with Kirk discussing their mutual support for the Jewish state the night before the assassination on Sept. 10.

We do know that Carlson benefited from Kirk’s instinctive opposition to deplatforming anyone. Although he disagreed with Carlson’s stands on Israel and Holocaust denial, Kirk still gave him the opportunity to speak at his influential TPUSA conferences.

Most on the right understand that their support for Israel and its just war against Hamas in Gaza is inextricably linked to their backing for traditional values, Western civilization and faith. Aligning themselves with the leftists and Islamists who hate the Jews is antithetical to those beliefs.

By allowing Carlson to keep his foot in the door, Turning Point USA is giving credence to pro-Hamas talking points about “genocide” and antisemitic tropes about the Jews using money to manipulate American foreign policy.

Opposing letting these ideas be considered debatable, rather than despicable notions that should be confined to the fever swamps of the far right and left, is not a matter of banning free speech. It’s just common sense. Conservatives should not be willing to treat such toxic ideas as legitimate any more than they should accept woke myths about race, intersectionality or settler-colonialism that they know to be both false and damaging to American society.

Yet that is the position that Carlson is claiming is now both mainstream conservatism and part of a Kirk legacy that should be defended.

Planting a seed of Jew-hatred

His presence on the podium at the Kirk memorial in Arizona, alongside administration leaders, was appalling in and of itself. But the fact that he used that bully pulpit to invoke the ideas that guys who eat hummus (aka Jews) plotted Jesus’s death the way the contemporary left plotted to silence Charlie planted an insidious seed of Jew-hatred in an otherwise moving tribute to the activist’s life and work.

It isn’t cancel culture to seek to rid the public square of this kind of hate any more than it is wrong to seek to reclaim academia for Western values by expelling woke DEI commissars and mobs of pro-Hamas hate-mongers. Doing so is a defense of the values of the American republic that Charlie Kirk believed in and for which he gave his life.

Defending the antisemitism of Carlson and Owens—and all of their friends and allies on the far right and the far left that agree with them—is not consistent with Kirk’s lifework. Nor is it necessarily a natural corollary to his efforts to end the silencing of conservatives in mainstream culture and society.

Anyone who cares about honoring the 31-year-old husband, father and activist—and his beliefs—should be outraged at the way Tucker Carlson is trying to hijack his legacy. If he succeeds, it will be more than a boost for pro-Hamas thugs and antisemites on both the left and the right. It will also set back any hopes that the efforts to win back America for Kirk’s conservative faith will ultimately succeed.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

I’m a Jewish Zionist College Professor: My Colleagues and I Are Under Attack

Samuel J. Abrams

The Sarah Lawrence campus. Photo: Wiki Commons.

“We’ve watched your joy in every small victory & your grief and rage when the NYPD breaks your bones & the bones of your friends … You give us hope. We’re so proud of you.”

These are not the words of radical student activists. They come from my own colleagues at Sarah Lawrence College, where I have taught for nearly two decades. They were posted publicly on the official Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine Instagram account. Professors celebrating broken bones. Educators glorifying violence. Teachers recruiting students not for scholarship, but for “resistance.”

This is the reality of American higher education in 2025. A powerful new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) confirms what I’ve witnessed firsthand: activist faculty, not just students, are driving some of the worst antisemitism on our campuses.

While the public fixates on student protests — the encampments, the disrupted commencements, the viral confrontations — the real danger often lurks in faculty lounges and department meetings. According to the survey of 209 Jewish faculty members, more than 73 percent have personally witnessed antisemitic incidents from colleagues, administrators, or staff. These are not impressionable undergraduates, but the very people entrusted to model scholarly discourse and uphold the core principles of academic freedom.

The transformation of professors into activists is no longer subtle. At Sarah Lawrence, the Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine chapter routinely posts messages defending radical actions, including one justifying a call for intifada on the school’s free speech board: “Sarah Lawrence Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine standing with our students today in their defense of what the free speech board was designed for. Here’s hoping that in a time of so much cowardice & ignorance (the English translation of the word ‘intifada’! become a way to shut down political opinion) @sarahlawrencecollege can defend the courage & the knowledge of these students fighting for the new day.”

This isn’t education. It’s antisemitic intimidation masquerading as scholarship. Faculty are no longer celebrating intellectual achievement, but glorifying physical confrontation and ideological conformity. They aren’t opening minds; they are closing ranks.

The ADL and AEN report exposes just how widespread and organized this movement has become. Nearly half of queried faculty in the opt-in survey report the presence of Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters on their campuses. Where these chapters exist, they are not academic societies but activist cells. Their work is not the pursuit of truth, but the advancement of a political program through intimidation and disruption. Since October 7, 2023, the network has expanded to over 130 chapters nationwide. The effect on Jewish faculty is profound: more than a third now hide their identity to survive professionally, while those who have experienced harassment are nearly eight times more likely to consider leaving academia entirely.

The report captures the human toll. One faculty member described how their department chair, openly pro-Hamas, turned the department into a literal encampment, plastered with “river to the sea” slogans. When a handful of Jewish faculty objected, the chair mobilized 50 people to attack them verbally, with one telling a Jewish colleague, “you have all the money and power.” These are not isolated incidents. They are symptomatic of a movement that has taken hold in far too many institutions.

Universities that move swiftly to punish microaggressions and mandate bias training suddenly discover complexity and nuance when Jews are targeted. Administrators who champion “safe spaces” tell Jewish faculty to be patient, to understand context, to accept that “anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism” even as their Jewish colleagues flee campus for their own safety. This selective enforcement is more than hypocrisy; it is institutional complicity.

The numbers reflect the consequences. In 2024, reported campus antisemitic incidents rose by 84 percent, reaching 1,694 documented cases — nearly five every single day. Universities have become the epicenters of anti-Jewish hatred. While some schools, like Vanderbilt, have improved their response, most remain paralyzed or unwilling to confront entrenched activist cultures among their own faculty.

At stake is the meaning of academic freedom itself. Professors can and should debate Israeli policies or any other contentious topic. That is the essence of higher learning. But academic freedom does not mean turning classrooms into indoctrination camps or making colleagues fear for their safety.

When faculty celebrate students having their “bones broken” by police, when they organize campaigns to exclude Israeli scholars from conferences and journals, when they instruct students not to cite “Zionist authors” even in unrelated subjects, that is no longer scholarship. It is activism wearing academic robes.

The danger extends far beyond campus walls. Universities do not simply educate individuals; they shape the habits of an entire generation of leaders. Students trained to see dissent as betrayal and ideological conformity as virtue will carry those habits into newsrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, and government offices. When faculty replace education with indoctrination, they corrupt not only the academy, but the democratic society it exists to serve.

I have lived this crisis personally. A colleague once physically assaulted me for refusing to condemn Israel. Administrators shrugged when I was boycotted for being openly Jewish and Zionist. Members of my own department have led teach-ins filled with hate and half-truths. These were not abstract debates about politics or foreign policy; they were direct attacks on my ability to teach and to exist openly as a Jew and Zionist on campus.

Across the country, countless faculty now hide who they are to survive in institutions that claim to value openness and diversity. Campuses have become minefields where a single word about Israel can end a career. The ADL and AEN data confirm what we are living: a crisis not merely of policies but of values. Universities must decide whether they are places of learning or places of ideological enforcement. They must decide whether they will protect all minorities or only those aligned with the prevailing activist culture.

I have spent my career defending the liberal arts ideal: that education means engaging with difficult ideas, not enforcing orthodox ones. But that tradition will not survive unless others join in this defense. Alumni can withhold donations until meaningful reforms are made. Legislators can insist on equal enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. Parents can choose schools that protect all students and faculty. Boards of Trustees can reclaim their oversight role and hold universities accountable to their core missions.

If we fail to act, we risk a future where universities complete their transformation into ideological factories — places where conformity is rewarded, dissent is punished, and entire groups of scholars are driven out. That is not only a loss for Jewish faculty or Jewish students. It is a catastrophe for the American democracy universities are supposed to strengthen.

When faculty abandon education for activism and administrators turn a blind eye, higher education ceases to serve its most basic purpose. The choice before us is stark: reform now, or watch as the very institutions tasked with preserving free thought become the engines of its destruction.

If our universities can no longer protect truth-seekers from mobs, they cannot protect democracy itself.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Trump Hits Russia, Backs Israel in Wide-Ranging UN Speech

Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

US President Donald Trump walks to address the 80th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S., September 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon STAPLETON

US President Donald Trump warned Russia on Tuesday that he is prepared to impose strong economic measures if it does not work toward ending the war in Ukraine, and rejected a global move toward recognition of a Palestinian state in a combative speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

In a wide-ranging foreign policy speech that included scathing criticism of the United Nations and European nations, Trump made the case for lower levels of global migration and said world leaders should abandon efforts to fight climate change, which he called “the greatest con job” in the world.

Taken as a whole, the 56-minute speech was a rebuke to the world body and a return to form for Trump, who had routinely bashed the U.N. during his first term as president. Leaders gave him polite applause when he exited the chamber.

Trump’s warning to Russia was his latest attempt to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has resisted the US president’s entreaties to pull back from the biggest war in Europe since World War two.

Trump said he wants US allies to impose the same measures on Russia he is proposing to apply pressure to Putin.

The US president has warned about the possibility of sanctions on Russia several times but has yet to follow through. Lately he has demanded Europe stop all Russian oil purchases before he will take action.

“In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly,” he said.

But for the measures to be effective, he said, “European nations, all of you gathered here, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”

He did not detail the measures, but he has been considering a package that includes sanctions against countries that do business with Russia, like India and China. The main buyers of Russian oil in Europe are Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey.

Trump planned a meeting later in the day with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been pressing for more US support to resist Russian advances.

On the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Trump gave a thumbs down to efforts by world leaders to embrace a Palestinian state, a move that faces fierce resistance from Israel.

“The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” he said, repeating his call for the return of hostages taken by the Palestinian militant group.

Trump said the United States wants a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that would see the return of all remaining hostages, alive and dead.

“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to immediately negotiate peace,” he said.

He was to discuss the future of Gaza during afternoon talks with several Gulf leaders.

CRITICISM OF MIGRATION POLICIES

Trump argued that other world leaders should adopt his tough-on-migrants policies, touting his campaign to arrest and deport migrants in the United States illegally, a stance that many countries around the world have viewed skeptically.

He accused the U.N., without providing evidence, of supporting “uncontrolled migration.”

“Europe is in serious trouble. They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody has ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe,” the president said.

“You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you’re going to be great again,” he told the world leaders.

Trump, who has cast himself as a peacemaker in a bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize, complained that the United Nations did not support his efforts to end conflicts around the world.

He twinned his complaint with personal grievances about the U.N.’s infrastructure, saying he and first lady Melania Trump were briefly marooned on a U.N. escalator and that his teleprompter was not initially working.

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations – a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said, noting that Melania Trump nearly fell when the escalator stopped abruptly.

Since taking office again, Trump has upended US foreign policy, slashing foreign aid, imposing tariffs on friend and foe alike and cultivating warmer – if volatile – relations with Russia.

At the same time he has sought, so far with only limited success, to solve some of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

Trump is among some 150 heads of state or governments expected to address the chamber this week. He spoke eight months into a second term marked by severe aid cuts that have sparked humanitarian worries and have raised doubts about the U.N.’s future.

According to planning documents reviewed by Reuters, the Trump administration plans to call this week for sharply narrowing the right to asylum, seeking to undo the post-World War Two framework around humanitarian protection.

Trump’s more restrictive stance would include requiring asylum seekers to claim protection in the first country they enter, not a nation of their choosing, a State Department spokesperson said.