Rasmus S. Pedersen

[Prof. Feynman @ProfFeynman]

Knowledge grows when you ask stupid questions. Stupidity grows when you don't ask anything.

[Rasmus S. Pedersen @r_soendergaard]

@FrikkNesje Congrats! Well deserved.

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

7/ Geolocated footage published on September 13 indicates that Russian forces entered western Lyubimovka (SE of Korenevo) during a company-sized mechanized assault. Footage from September 14 shows Russian naval infantry operating in central Borki (southeast of Sudzha).

[Renew Democracy Initiative @Renew_Democracy]

🧵🇺🇦🇩🇪Today, RDI launches our German Responsibility Campaign. We're calling on @Bundeskanzler @OlafScholz to fulfill his country's historic responsibility and give Ukraine the military aid it needs to stop Russia—including long-range Taurus missiles. (1/6)

[GermanForeignOffice @GermanyDiplo]

Good morning from Moscow! Foreign Minister @HeikoMaas starts his day by meeting 🇩🇪 & 🇷🇺 business representatives. Focus on: How can we initiate new cooperation as well as deepen existing, already divers business relations?

[Sergej Sumlenny, LL.M @sumlenny]

Leader of Germany's @CDU party @_FriedrichMerz:
✅The CDU is the winner of the election with the stongest result
✅We are facing Russia's war against Europe.
✅There will be no German Chamberlain.
A wish to have a chancellor who says this was a reason why many voted for the CDU.

[Rasmus S. Pedersen @r_soendergaard]

@KBHvidberg @Aarhus_BSS Stort tillykke, Kristoffer!

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

An incredible letter written by a non-Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel

It's a response from Dr. Denis MacEoin to the motion put forward by The Edinburgh Student's Association to boycott all things Israeli, in which they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime.

Denis is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and was a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Here's his letter to the students.

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel .

That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I'm speaking of a hatred that
permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is
this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel , precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran , the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why
aren't your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa .

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.

On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.

Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the
Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that
protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side.

Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and
that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.

It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Denis MacEoin

[Rasmus S. Pedersen @r_soendergaard]

@mikaelbjork1234 @EmilMoller10 Bogen er udgivet af Politikens Forlag.

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

The presidents of @Harvard, @MIT, and @Penn were all asked the following question under oath at today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?

The answers they gave reflect the profound moral bankruptcy of Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.

Representative @EliseStefanik was so shocked with the answers that she asked each of them the same question over and over again, and they gave the same answers over and over again.

In short, they said:

It ‘depends on the context’ and ‘whether the speech turns into conduct,’ that is, actually killing Jews.

This could be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide, which to remind us all is:

“the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group”

The presidents’ answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership.

Don’t take my word for it.

You must watch the following three minutes. By the end, you will be where I am.

They must all resign in disgrace.

If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour.

Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world?

Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.

To think that these are the leaders of Ivy League institutions that are charged with the responsibility to educate our best and brightest.

On the bright side, our congressional leaders deserve accolades for showing tremendous leadership and moral clarity in their statements, by the questions they asked, and the respectfulness with which they conducted the hearing.

It was a masterclass of how our government and democracy should operate.

If you have time, please watch the entire hearing. Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses, exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.

[Jeppe Druedahl @JeppeDruedahl]

@Economics_UCPH PS: You will be part of a growing macro group, where we are hiring on both the junior and a more senior level https://t.co/MNTvCp9zO8

[Jeppe Druedahl @JeppeDruedahl]

We are searching for a computational (macro)economist for a 2 year #PostDoc at @Economics_UCPH. You will be part on joint research on using deep reinforcement learning, but also have fully independent research time. More info: https://t.co/BUsNu4CL6d
Deadline: Nov 26, 2023.

[Markku Lanne @MarkkuLanne]

Applications are welcome for a three-year post-doctoral position in the project "Structural Analysis of Non-Gaussian Time Series with Applications to Climate and Macroeconomy" at the University of Helsinki.

https://t.co/ImvMpfC12P

[Jeppe Druedahl @JeppeDruedahl]

Considering a PhD in economics? Come to Copenhagen! We have five open positions. See🧵 below. I am in particular searching for students with a strong interest in computational economics. The pay is decent, the department is vibrant, and the culture is open and friendly. @KuSamf

[Jacob Barfoed @JacobBarfoed]

Fremragende analyse af ⁦@PoulHoi⁩ “#Putin vil formentlig forlænge og forværre krigen, indtil militære nederlag tvinger ham til at acceptere det uundgåelige, og hvis vestlige politikere vil fremme hans erkendelsesproces, må de fremme hans nederlag.” https://t.co/jwDU9906No

[Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹 @GLandsbergis]

Why aren’t we sending Ukraine all the tools needed to end the war? Why are we avoiding specifics during the debate on Ukraine‘s membership of NATO? Because the belief is still alive that after the war we can return to business as usual, as if February 24th was just a glitch.

[Kristian Andersen @KristiaAndersen]

Eva Smith: Minkkommissionen og Folketinget er til grin https://t.co/X1poEJGEga #dkpol

[Sofie Carsten Nielsen @sofiecn]

Retsstaten er hverken rød eller blå og må aldrig blive det. Det er en af de stærkeste værdier i vores danske demokrati #dkpol