Israelis a literary ‘crime’, Obama’s secret gift to Tehran and other commentary

Conservative: Israelis a Literary ‘Crime’?

Popular novelist R.F. Kuang is in an “awkward situation” as she “faces a serious allegation” that “she is giving credence to the idea that Israeli people exist,” because her latest book “includes a page with an Israeli character,” snarks Commentary’s Seth Mandel. Though she gives the character a “negative portrayal,” including any Jewish Israelis is “still a woke infraction.” Past critical outrage moved another “author to bowdlerize her own book because it referenced an Israeli person engaged in the crime of existing.” Rising to Kuang’s defense are anti-Zionist fans who “believe she is fully on their side when it comes to the question of whether Jews ought to be permitted to exist.” Oy.

Diplomacy desk: Obama’s Secret Gift to Tehran

“I used to dismiss what I thought was an urban myth that, to help sell Tehran on the nuke deal, President Barack Obama granted thousands of Iranian spies a backdoor path to residence and ultimately citizenship in the United States,” confesses Peter Theroux at Tablet. But “this supposed myth” gained “credibility” with the arrest of “Shamim Mafi, an Iranian arms trafficker” who came to America and got “permanent residency under the Obama administration three years later.” And Mafi wasn’t the only one: Eissa Hashemi, whose parents were “embassy hostage takers, ‘entered the United States in 2014 on visas issued by the Obama administration,’ ” reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Theroux concluded: To land the nuke deal, “the Obama administration was currying favor with the worst elements of the Islamic Republic regime.”

Fed watch: ‘Sore Loser’ Powell’s ‘Bad Form’

Jerome Powell’s decision to remain on the Federal Reserve Board is “bad form,” slams Stephen Moore at RealClearPolitics. He “was one of [President] Trump’s worst appointments,” since inflation on his watch exceeded the Fed’s target “two-thirds of the time” and he almost sparked a recession “with inexcusably high rates in 2018.” “During COVID-19’s aftermath he flooded the economy with cheap money”; Americans are “still paying high grocery prices” thanks to his blunders. He also used “interest rate policy” to “bludgeon” Trump, lowering rates only just before the 2024 election, perhaps to help Kamala Harris. Powell’s been “knighted by the media because of his public spats with Trump.” But staying on puts his replacement as chairman, Kevin Warsh, “in an awkward position.” But that’s what “sore losers do.”

Union beat: Randi’s AFT a Political Racket

“Randi Weingarten is using mafia tactics to bully Target into denouncing immigration enforcement by ICE,” roars Corey DeAngelis at The Spectator. The American Federation of Teachers boss threatened to dump “her union’s massive pension holdings [in Target stock] unless it publicly opposes ICE operations in Minnesota.” Par for the course, as she routinely prefers “to push politics rather than do anything to increase student achievement.” “American students continue to fall behind in reading and math,” yet Randi “focuses her energy on culture-war crusades and corporate pressure campaigns.” The union “was behind the ‘No Kings’ ” and “May Day protests.” Its “ideological crusades and pressure campaigns reveal the union’s core priorities” and ignore “stagnant test scores and learning loss.” Taxpayers “should stop subsidizing the [AFT] racket.”

Eye on Britain: Labour’s Love Lost

The Labour Party’s bloodbath in Thursday’s local elections was “not just a bruising defeat for an unpopular incumbent,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but “the beginning of the end for the so-called people’s party,” cheers Spiked’s Fraser Myers. “Starmer’s party is losing half of the seats it’s defending. Not quite the worst-ever rate of loss for a governing party. That dishonour belongs to, er, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party in May 2025.” Yet “those in Labour who think a change of captain will be enough to rescue the sinking ship” are “deluded,” as leaders seek new ways “to sell out the working classes,” the party’s traditional base. “There is no wing of the Labour Party that isn’t contemptuous of the electorate,” so “the long-overdue death of Labour has finally arrived.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board