Adieu, UNRWA, stop lying to kids on gender and other commentary

Foreign Desk: Adieu, UNRWA

Given the group’s intimate ties to Hamas, “Why on earth was UNRWA given free rein in Gaza for so long?” asks Commentary’s Seth Mandel. Those days are finally over,” as the Knesset just passed a law “barring UNRWA from Israel and greatly limiting its work in Gaza and the West Bank.” This, UNRWA protests, won’t “strip the Palestinians from their refugee status” — but that, Mandel notes, raises the fact that UNRWA “has inflated the number of refugees” by including “the descendants of refugees.” Where “UNRWA counts nearly 6 million Palestinians among its refugee population,” genuine remaining refugees from 1948 are “closer to 30,000.” “Actual refugees deserve every bit of help they can get from refugee agencies. But that work isn’t being done by UNRWA.”

Eye on education: Stop Lying to Kids on Gender

Trans ideology, argues Naomi Firsht at Spiked, pervades all children’s lives “through schools and other activities, distorting truth and reality for young minds.” “We are often told that if you are not trans then this shouldn’t concern you.” But “the affirmative approach affects even those children who don’t identify as trans,” who must “play along” as part of “affirmation.” “Is this denial of biological reality something we should be encouraging?” “We are being asked to tell our children that boys and girls can be born in the wrong body, and that they can magically become the opposite sex.” “To imagine that this will not have a significant impact on how these children grow up is a very dangerous delusion indeed.”

Campaign beat: Betting Markets Add Value

“The benefits that prediction markets offer” outweigh the potential downsides, argues Charles Fain Lehman at The Free Press. Legalized in in a federal court ruling, these markets have become “big business” in the 2024 race, with users hedging billions of dollars in bets across sites like Kalshi and Polymarket. “While Trump and Harris are polling neck and neck,” different information comes as “Polymarket recently showed Trump breaking well away from Harris, giving him a 66.7 percent chance to win.” Yes, this could “alter the outcome of the race,” but these markets’ unique value is aggregating information into “a price.” Thus, “it’s good news that prediction markets finally have the freedom to run, but they need to start answering tough questions about their potential misuse,” such as gambling addiction, and potential voter manipulation.

Media watch: Pulling Press to Their Senses

“The media world is in a fury: the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times recently announced that they would not endorse a presidential candidate,” smirks City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald. Editors and columnists “resigned in protest,” while readers “cancelled their subscriptions” over the papers “denying readers an additional hate-Trump fix in the form of an endorsement.” The “universal certainty” of how the papers “would have endorsed” should give “news editors and reporters pause.” Post owner Jeff Bezos called it “the start of an effort to restore the Post’s credibility.” The Times’ Patrick Soon-Shiong also “wanted to pull back on media partisanship.” And: “The hysterical backlash against the two papers’ non-endorsement decisions only confirms that those decisions were correct.”

Conservative: Dems’ Failure To ‘Self-Scout’

Since 2020, Democrats have “refused to do any serious ‘self-scouting’” — i.e., take “a hard, unsparing assessment of their own strengths and weaknesses,” contends National Review’s Jim Geraghty. Now they’re “left hoping” the GOP vote lead “is a mirage.” Polls show, “on issue after issue, a majority of independents are closer” to Republicans than Democrats, yet Dems dismiss those who disagree with them as “extreme.” They “convinced themselves first that President “Biden was doing fine” in terms of health and his performance, then that voters approved of Harris. They “walked around in a fog of optimistic happy talk” or thought hatred of Donald Trump could overcome their weaknesses. But “they may not have convinced enough voters in enough states to get to 270 electoral votes.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board