UNSC adopts Gaza ceasefire resolution; EU youth vote turned to the “far right”; will “generation toolbelt” help fix higher education?

(a) The UN Security Council, 14-0 with Russia abstaining, adopted a US-sponsored motion calling upon Israel and HamaSS to accept the “Biden cease fire”.

HamaSS welcomed the resolution, while Israel, represented by a career diplomat rather than Ambassador Gilad Erdan (who is a political appointee), avoids publicly voicing opposition.

Israel came out against the resolution last week, taking issue with some of the amendments that were made to the text.

The US addressed one of those concerns, dropping an explicit rejection to the establishment of Israeli security buffer zones in Gaza. The move appeared to be enough to satisfy Israel, whose representative at Monday’s meeting avoided criticizing the resolution or directly commenting on it whatsoever.

(b) In the European elections, a startling percentage of the youth vote appears to have gone to the far right, in the face of the usual expectation (which actually had the German greens lobbying to lower the voting age to 16). Case in point: France (screenshot from the Telegraph; fair use under Section 27 of the Israeli copyright law).

But it was not just [the very young RN frontman] Mr Bardella who was drawing swarms of young voters. Germany’s hard-Right Alternative for Germany(AfD) also surged in the polls, propelled in part by voters under the age of 30.

One poll published on Sunday showed that 32 per cent of 18-34 year-olds voted for the RN in France, more than double the total of the 2019 European elections. In Germany, the AfD saw an 11 per cent jump in its vote share among 16-to-24 year-olds, claiming a total of 16 per cent. It saw big jumps in 25-44 year-olds, too.

In the last European election, young people in Europe overwhelmingly voted for green parties in what was heralded as a “green wave.”

However, interest has waned among a generation that grew up during the Covid pandemic and frets about war in Europe, an uncertain job market and a lack of affordable housing.

Many young voters say mainstream parties are not tuned in to their concerns – at worst hardly speaking their language.

That is an opportunity that has been successfully exploited by the AfD and the RN. Their weapon of choice was Tiktok, the video-sharing app dominated by Gen Z.

Needless to say, TikTok’s paymasters — the CCP — are rubbing their hands with glee at the chaos their platform continues to sow.

(c) Two stories about the “higher education bubble”

• “Toolbelt Generation” by Insty, on how Gen Z [males especially] are embracing trade schools and apprenticeship programs — with much less student debt and well-paid work that cannot easily be digitally outsourced or replaced by AI
• Arnold Kling on how to fix higher education: “get rid of all the students who don’t belong“. “Fundamentally, there are too many people on a college campus who don’t belong there.
  When I was an adjunct at George Mason, most of my students could not write or do math. Reading their essays or grading their exams was painful. I wanted to forward them to the admissions department and ask, “What are you doing?” It was the rare student who could actually think at a level that justified being in a college-level course.1
  This country is sending way too many young people to college. Instead, they should be going to training programs to become allied health professionals, or electricians, or solar panel installers, or something.
  There are also many faculty members who do not belong on college campus. Obviously, you have the grievance studies departments. But if you were to dial back the number of students in the humanities and social sciences to a number that is actually qualified to study those subjects, you would have to cut the majority of faculty positions.
  There are way too many administrators on campus. It is not just the DEI bureaucrats who could be jettisoned. Many of the administrators are there to coddle the students who should not have been admitted in the first place. Tighten up the admissions standards and you can get by with fewer administrators.
  There are too many ungrateful foreign students on campus. A lot them engage in rampant cheating. Some of them participate in violent demonstrations. We should only be admitting students who are motivated to learn. Stop taking unmotivated foreign students just to collect their tuition money.
  The trouble with higher education is bloat. The student bodies are bloated. The faculties are bloated. And the administrations are bloated. If colleges and universities were right-sized, many of the problems with higher education would be taken care of.”
• With some luck, the first item (combined with something not-so-lucky Dr. Kling does not mention: the much smaller Gen Z /generational cohort compared to Boomers and millenial “echo Boomers”) will go some way to mitigating the problem.

ADDENDUM: shame upon you, University of Amsterdam. Disinviting a speaker on a completely unrelated subject because his position on the Israel-HamaSS conflict is “unacceptable” (read: not full-deepthroated support for the “Islamistische Nieuwe Herenvolk”. Zootje walgelijke Hamaspijpers en Islamoreetkruipers. Nieuwe Anton Musserts. Krijg allemaal de pokketering.

Tonight is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, where we mark the giving of the Torah [“the Law”, but more correctly translated: “the Teaching” or “the Doctrine”] on Mount Sinai. Chag Shavuot sameach!