Lebanon Ceasefire Will Enable Focus on Iran, Netanyahu Says

Plus, who is teaching at Yale?

Netanyahu explaining the ceasefire in a video distributed by Israel’s government press office, November 26, 2024.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remarks explaining the ceasefire with Lebanon are the latest in a series we have been noticing here signaling that he is focused on Iran.

“Why should we have a ceasefire now? For three main reasons: The first reason is to focus on the Iranian threat, and I won't expand on that,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu called Iran “the head of the octopus” and said, “I am determined to do anything needed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That threat has always been my top priority and is even more so today, when you hear Iran's leaders state over and over again their intention to obtain nuclear weapons. For me, removing that threat is the most important mission to ensure the existence and future of the State of Israel.”

Who is teaching at Yale? The Yale Daily News has a list of the “Top 40 new courses by professor rating” in Spring 2025, selecting from courses with “no prerequisites or final exam.”

It’s a good reality check on who is teaching at Yale these days.

Here are the teachers listed.

Christopher Minkowski (“Astrology in India”), a visiting professor, having retired as Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford.

Caleb Knapp (“Abolition in the Americas”), “lecturer.”

Spencer Small (“Boredom and Catastrophe: Russian Literature After Stalin”), “lecturer.”

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah (“The Others: Writing Literary Conflict”), “lecturer.”

Joseph Miranda (“What Was Latinx Literature”), “assistant professor.”

Gojko Barjamovic and Vincent Morel (“Unequal: Dynamics of Power and Social Hierarchy in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia”), “Senior Lecturer & Senior Research Scholar in Assyriology,” “Postdoctoral Associate & Lecturer.”

Hasabie Kidanu, (“Introduction to Intaglio Printmaking”), “lecturer.”

Austen Hinkley (“Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries: From A Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl”), “lecturer.”

Jeffrey Hobbs (“Immersive Journalism”), “lecturer.”

Malina Buturovic (“Drama and Justice”), “assistant professor.”

Federico Brandmayr (“Understanding Violence”), “lecturer.”

Emily Coates and Emmanuele Phuon (“Dance in Cambodia”), professor in the practice, lecturer.

Jack Ford (“Trials of the 20th Century”), lecturer.

Kate Bolick (“Nonfiction Writing: Writing about Clothes”), lecturer.

Sushant Singh (“Mutual Dependence: Journalism and Democracy in South Asia”), lecturer.

Elleza Kelley (“Black Geographies: Space & Place in African American Literature”), Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies.

Ximena Lopez Carrillo (“Disability Politics in the Americas”), lecturer.

Alex Manning and Faith Taylor (“Carcerality and the Environment”), “lecturer and research scholar” and PhD student.

Lester Oberg and Ted Wittenstein (“The Space Domain and Global Security”) “Professor (Adjunct)” and senior lecturer.

Aleksandar Uskokov (“From Yajnavalkya to Schopenhauer: The Philosophy of the Upanishads”), “senior lector”

I was trying to find a class taught by a tenured senior faculty member, also known as a “full professor,” but after more than 20 tries and no successes, I gave up.

I wrote about this back in September in the Harvard context (“Who is teaching Harvard’s ‘meritless’ courses?”), observing, “Harvard is farming out the teaching duties to lower-paid staff who are less distinguished in the academic pecking order and who haven’t yet met the qualifications to become a tenured full Harvard professor.”

I went on, “Students are often unaware of or unattuned to these subtle status distinctions, figuring the grownup teaching the course is functionally a Harvard faculty member, regardless of whether the person’s actual title is professor, professor of the practice, or ‘lecturer.’ Harvard administrators who oversee the tenure process can congratulate themselves for upholding supposedly rigorous standards—no, we aren’t going to promote that professor of ‘activism.’ But plenty of Harvard courses are taught to plenty of Harvard students by teachers who haven’t met those standards and who likely never will. These teachers aren’t necessarily inferior for a student to learn from…but it’s a different model than the classic world-class-researcher Harvard professor.”

Anyway, Kate Bolick was my New York Sun colleague. Any student would be lucky to learn from her. Some of the others listed here may also be terrific; the students rate their classes highly.

This has been an issue at Yale for some time. A 1999 study claimed “full-time tenure-track faculty taught only 30 percent of Yale's classes, while adjunct instructors and graduate students taught the other 70 percent.”

Bill would discourage university boycotts of Israel: Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, have introduced legislation that would bar colleges and universities from participating in federal student aid if the institution participates in a “nonexpressive commercial boycott of Israel.”

“If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences,” Foxx said. Her press release cited willingness by Northwestern University officials to remove “Sabra hummus from campus dining facilities because of the brand’s perception as an Israeli product.”

Good for them, though I wouldn’t want to have to sort out the difference between a “nonexpressive” boycott of Israel and an expressive one, and I have my doubts about whether such a distinction is even really possible.

Return of the Bond Vigilantes: Andy Kessler writes in the Wall Street Journal: “With the latest rise of long bond rates, I wonder: Are bond vigilantes back? Right now, the Federal deficit stands at 6.4% of GDP. The few times it has exceeded this level were the pandemic, after the financial crisis and during World War II. Fine company. Perhaps bond yields are up as a warning to the incoming Trump administration officials that they don’t get a blank check to spend like drunken sailors. That bondholders won’t stand for inflation. And don’t you dare let Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent weaken the dollar. If Mr. Trump doesn’t trim deficits, watch out below. His legacy will be destroyed by the bond market.”

Maybe Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their Department of Government Efficiency will help with the deficit. Economic growth can help a lot with the federal budget, and maybe that will help, too.