Shabbat shalom.
We are now at day 29 since Black Shabbat, and I fear that soon we will be noting the passage of time of this war in weeks or months. As the casualties mount on both sides, there is increasingly more pressure on Israel to pause for humanitarian reasons, as the collateral damage to the civilian population in Gaza, despite Israel’s efforts to minimize them, continue to explode. A large majority of Israeli’s want Netanyahu to resign (over 80%), but that is not likely to happen during war time. Faced with no good options, Netanyahu has declared that there will be no “pause” or ceasefire while the Hamas murderers still hold hostages and has vowed to press on in eradicating Hamas. You all know I am no fan of Netanyahu, but I agree with his position, a position which is becoming less and less popular across the world, despite the barbaric unprovoked attack by Hamas and their pledge to do it again, and even as anti-semitic incidents in the USA and across the globe swell to proportions unheard of since the holocaust.
Last week (“I think these kids have shit for brains”), I noted some of the horrible anti-semitic activities on US campus’s and pro-Palestinian demonstrations that continue to seek ways to contextualize October 7, as if there is any excuse or rationale for the inhuman terror unleashed by Hamas. Obviously, there is not. But, I think and sense that there is a growing number of voices on social media and in the main stream media (not just the whacko right) that are beginning to question liberal thought leadership in academia and how we could possibly get to a place that explains these crazy kids on campus. For one explanation, I point you to this piece in the Atlantic by Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False. Simon is a British historian and television presenter, who felt compelled to take on the topic of “Decolonization”, one of the main excuses and contexts being used to justify Hamas and Palestinian support. He joins a growing list of analysts that are trying to take down the idea, which has become popular in Academia for interpreting and re-interpreting everything from liberal arts to math. According to Montefiore, this decolonization narrative has “dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.” Montefiore goes on, “But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.””
Montefiore proceeds to debunk the foggy thinking on every possible ground and craven intellectual front. He is a strong advocate of a two state solution, although that option is looking increasingly unclear. You can read the entire article using this link,and I urge you to do so.
Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.
Very strange company for leftists.
Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.” Others deny that they are pro-Hamas, insisting that they are simply pro-Palestinian—but feel the need to cast Hamas’s massacre as an understandable response to Israeli-Jewish “colonial” oppression. Yet others are malign deniers who seek the death of Israeli civilians.
The toxicity of this ideology is now clear. Once-respectable intellectuals have shamelessly debated whether 40 babies were dismembered or some smaller number merely had their throats cut or were burned alive. Students now regularly tear down posters of children held as Hamas hostages. It is hard to understand such heartless inhumanity. Our definition of a hate crime is constantly expanding, but if this is not a hate crime, what is? What is happening in our societies? Something has gone wrong.
I’m not sure if this explains the level of schmuckery and stupidity emerging from our smart ass college kids. There is certainly some old fashioned anti-semitism driving some of this as well. And maybe we can also blame social media, as argued quite convincingly by Jonathan Haidt in this Atlantic article, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”. According to Haidt,
Liberals in the late 20th century shared a belief that the sociologist Christian Smith called the “liberal progress” narrative, in which America used to be horrifically unjust and repressive, but, thanks to the struggles of activists and heroes, has made (and continues to make) progress toward realizing the noble promise of its founding. This story easily supports liberal patriotism, and it was the animating narrative of Barack Obama’s presidency. It is also the view of the “traditional liberals” in the “Hidden Tribes” study (11 percent of the population), who have strong humanitarian values, are older than average, and are largely the people leading America’s cultural and intellectual institutions. But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders. Confused and fearful, the leaders rarely challenged the activists or their nonliberal narrative in which life at every institution is an eternal battle among identity groups over a zero-sum pie, and the people on top got there by oppressing the people on the bottom. This new narrative is rigidly egalitarian––focused on equality of outcomes, not of rights or opportunities. It is unconcerned with individual rights.
Smarter people than myself will have better reasons and better ways to articulate them, but, I worry about the backlash against progressivism in general, particularly amongst the more traditional liberals like myself. I hope I don’t take too many darts for this posting.
Before I get to the JNR roundup, I thought I would share one fun and heart warming story from the front lines in Israel. In the aftermath of Black Shabbat, apparently the wheels of civil government have not been working very well, and to fill that void, thousands of Israelis have volunteered to do everything from offering clothing and shelter, resettling evacuees, and preparing meals for soldiers. One such volunteer group identifies themselves as “War Tinder”, and have been cooking thousands of meals in tupperwear containers that also include the phone numbers of single women along with a short profile and a message. My favorite message from one of these women was, “Our hope is not yet lost, (nor is my mother’s hope lost either)”
Now, for a quick roundup of the news for Jews across the Jew S of A:
- The Israel Defense Forces said they had fully encircled Gaza City, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept “humanitarian pauses” in the war. President Joe Biden’s administration is privately warning Israeli officials that there’s a ticking clock on how long it can maintain support for the war, as global concern mounts over humanitarian issues in Gaza.
- Cornell University canceled all Friday classes as the campus reeled from the arrest of a junior for making violent threats against Jewish students online. Separately, a swastika was found in a residence hall at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
- Two dozen major law firms issued a letter to top law schools, including Harvard and Yale, demanding they crack down on antisemitism, writing, “It is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues.”
- The Russian mob that stormed a Dagestan airport Sunday, shouting antisemitic slogans as a flight from Tel Aviv landed, was the product of weeks of disinformation spread in the region, a New York Times investigation found. The disinformation suggested that Israelis were going to be resettled in the region, and social media users began threatening violence against Jews days before the riot. Separately, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson described Israel’s recommendation that Israelis in the region leave as “anti-Russian.”
- The popular social media app TikTok pushed back against accusations that it spreads antisemitism, saying it had removed millions of videos related to hate speech since the Oct. 7 attack. A group of Jewish creators on the platform said in a Wednesday letter that the app was “not protecting the safety of its Jewish creators and community.”
- A senior Hamas official threatened further attacks on Israel in an interview with a Lebanese TV station last week, new translation efforts revealed. “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times,” said Ghazi Hamad, calling the Oct. 7 attack “just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”
- Concerns about spiking antisemitism in Europe persisted, as police in at least three European countries have arrested suspects allegedly plotting terror attacks related to the war. Antisemitic graffiti appeared across one Paris neighborhood; a fire was set in the Jewish section of Vienna’s main cemetery and swastikas spray-painted on walls; and sidewalk plaques commemorating Nazi victims in Romewere vandalized.
That’s all for now. Let’s stay positive, avoid darts, and, let’s be careful out there!
Brad out.
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