Before the horrors of attempting to teach freshman composition catapulted me into law school, the default choice for those without useful skills, I taught English at a large Midwestern state university. Like most humanities departments in such places, it was devoid of honor or prestige. To present it as a simple analogy, the university had a football team and a basketball team. Academically, we were the chess team or debate club, self-impressed but not important.
We did have one saving grace; we weren’t the economics department.
That department epitomized futility and boredom. It had neither steak nor sizzle. It lacked all charm. We had Shakespeare, poetry, great novels and drama. They had John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and statistics.
Why, some 50 years after I left teaching, do the troglodytes inhabiting the economics department come to mind?
Because 23 self-styled “leading academic economists in the United States and Europe” have bestirred themselves to write an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling upon him to provide Gazans with sufficient food and medical aid, renounce any plan to establish humanitarian zones (in which Gazan residents might safely obtain such provisions), abandon any proposal to confine or control the population, reaffirm Israel’s commitment to human rights and international law, and, wait for it ... actively pursue in good faith a ceasefire accord that will improve the humanitarian situation, return the hostages home and end the fighting.
One imagines Netanyahu striking himself upside the head, exclaiming, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
And, yes, six Nobel laureates are signed on to the letter. Will the economists guarantee that Hamas will not continue to steal the bulk of the humanitarian provisions entering Gaza? Can the economists think of some other way to protect civilians being used as human shields and public relations tools by Hamas? Can the economists confidently believe that their plan, identical in all respects to the negotiating position of Hamas, will protect the innocent residents of Israel from rape, kidnapping, mutilation, infanticide and genocide, the primary planks in the platform of Hamas?
The assumption, ubiquitous in the rarefied atmosphere of college campuses, but at odds with both truth and lived experience, that Israel can free the hostages and secure a lasting peace without a military victory is nothing but fantasy. The agenda of this gaggle of economists depends on the concurrence of Hamas, which has never deviated from its goal of killing Jews and wiping out the Jewish state.
Yet, aside from a single perfunctory sentence to the effect that Hamas should be “held responsible” for the atrocities of Oct. 7 and the holding of hostages (killing hostages appears not to violate the economists’ sensibilities), the onus for conducting and ending the war is placed entirely upon Israel. In their thinking, Israel, but not Hamas, must observe international law. Israel, but not Hamas, is responsible for food shortages in Gaza. Israel, but not Hamas, must act in good faith to end the conflict and return the hostages.
Who do they think kidnapped the hostages? Who do they think refuses to return them? Who do they think has confiscated more than 70% of the food delivered to Gaza and is selling it at the exorbitant prices the economists bemoan?
Why is all this so infuriating? After all, haven’t we come to expect this sort of airy nonsense from the blissful denizens of academia? Shouldn’t any intelligent reader know that they are requesting a solution that is simply unavailable under the present circumstances? Isn’t their lack of practical experience in conducting an existential war and protecting future generations from terrorism and genocide obvious?
Yes, of course, but this sort of criticism is dangerous. It is dangerous because it is replete with self-fulfilling prophecies, horrors that the economists predict if Israel does not implement its implausible and unfeasible suggestions—namely, targeted economic sanctions against Israel, ratings downgrades for Israel’s sovereign debt, emigration of skilled professionals and the loss of the high-tech industry.
By listing these as possible consequences, these Cassandras make it seem like such actions are legitimate responses to Israel’s attempts to survive with lasting peace. Yet they are not, since guilt for the situation in Gaza doesn’t rest with Netanyahu, whatever his deficiencies. It rests solely with Hamas. The Israeli government that has been elected by the people—and the armed forces charged with executing its policies and protecting the safety of Israeli citizens—is attempting, presumably to the best of its abilities, to bring an acceptable and enduring end to the war.
The economists have cast their vote for the terrorists. They may not have intended to do so, but it is impossible to read their letter without reaching that conclusion. As to whether they are also antisemites, I will hold my judgment in abeyance until I see whether they issue similar letters on the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria; the massacre of Druze in Syria; the oppression of Kurds in Turkey and Syria; the genocide of the Uyghurs; the famine in Darfur; and slavery in Sudan.
I’m not holding my breath.
These well-meaning economists may invite ridicule and derision, but the damage they do in their unwitting fealty to the terrorists of Hamas and their supporters is incalculable.
