Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, has long made clear his sympathies for Palestinian Arabs over Israel. Those Arabs are his adopted wards and there are 50 Muslim-majority countries at the UN, so he does their bidding as part of his job.
As part of protecting Palestinian Arabs, he has refused to call for the Hamas terrorists which committed the heinous attacks on October 7 to be brought to justice, and instead urged “maximum restraint,” contrary to how he responds to other terrorist attacks.
On March 15, 2024, Guterres took a step beyond defending Palestinians to accusing Israel of engaging in an ethnically-motivated war against Muslims.
On the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, Guterres led with a call “for a silencing of the guns in Gaza and Sudan. Today, at this important event, I call on all political, religious and community leaders — everyone, everywhere — to join our plea. It’s time for peace.”
This is outrageous.
The war taking place in Sudan is an ethnic battle of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias against ethnic Masalit Muslims. The RSF deliberately murdered over 1,000 people, somewhat like the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas attack on Israelis.
But Guterres inverted the narrative. While the targeted victims were Muslims in Sudan, the targets in the Gaza war were Israeli Jews. The radical jihadists of Hamas engaged in an all-out ethnic war to rid the land of Jews as made clear in their foundational charter. Israel is simply responding to the attack which happened to be committed by radical Muslims. Charging Israel with “Islamophobia” is both a disgusting smear and a whitewashing of the noxious antisemitism of Palestinians.
The United Nations Secretary General is fanning the flames of hatred against the Jewish State, inverting the vile antisemitism of Hamas jihadists to an accusation that Israel is engaged in an anti-Islamic war. His comments should be repudiated by every member of the United Nations and he should be forced to resign.
Megilat Esther tells a 2,400 year-old story of a raging antisemite named Haman who managed to obtain power of a king in ancient Persia. With this power, he managed to secure an edict calling for the genocide of the Jews in the kingdom. Fortunately his plan failed, due to people close to the king confronting the plan as well as having a history of doing good works for the emperor. The event is celebrated in the Jewish holiday of Purim, from the Hebrew word pur, meaning lottery, as Haman chose the date for genocide randomly.
There are lessons to be gleaned for diaspora Jewry, and it is the exact opposite of randomness and involves a topic of which many are uncomfortable: power.
There have always been, and will always be, antisemites who seek to kill Jews. What differentiates the rouge madman from a Haman or Hitler is power. Hamas achieved its October 7 barbarity as the democratically-elected majority party in the Palestinian parliament which has had complete rule over Gaza since 2007. Evil ideology plus power is a grave threat to Jews.
Therefore, it is incumbent on Jews to befriend people in power, to keep bad people from obtaining power, and to perform good deeds at all times that benefit society.
In the United States, the broken election system has fostered a political class increasingly made up of extremists. Whether right-wing or left-wing, they often come for Jews. This primary season, it is imperative to support the challengers of the extremist incumbents in congress:
In NY-16, extremist Rep. Jamaal Bowman is being challenged by Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Donate to Latimer here.
In MO-1, extremist Rep. Cori Bush is being challenged by public defender Wesley Bell. Donate to Bell here.
In MN-05, extremist Rep. Ilhan Omar is being challenged by Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels. Donate to Samuels here.
In PA-12, extremist Summer Lee is being challenged by local legislator Bhavini Patel. Donate to Patel here.
There are other extremists like antisemite Rep. Rashida Tlaib in Michigan, but she is running unopposed. It is nevertheless important to share her vile antisemitism and extremism widely, especially as the liberal press gives her a large platform.
Members of the extremist “squad” including Reps. Bowman, Omar, Pressley, Bush, Lee
There is a reason that this war in Israel feels much more frightening for American Jews: your local antisemites feel empowered by an increasingly anti-factual, anti-Jewish school curricula and by shrill antisemites in positions of power. We are not powerless to stem the tide of hatred. Work to get them out of power in the upcoming primaries.
Pew Research conducted a poll of Americans in February 2024 about the current Gaza War. There are number of findings worth flagging.
Americans side with Israel. Roughly 58% of Americans think that Israel is right to go after Hamas, while 49% think that Hamas has few if any valid reasons to fight Israel. An astonishing 28% had no opinion on the matter.
A wide majority of 73% of Americans think that Hamas’s approach to fighting the war is unacceptable, arguably way too few considering the savage butchery of the Palestinian army burning families alive. There is no real consensus about Israel’s handling of the war with 38%, 34% and 26% saying that they approve, disapprove or have no opinion of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Jews and Protestants versus Muslims, Secular Americans and Blacks. The poll examined people’s attitudes in the war by religion. Jews and Protestants aligned in their perspectives with 77%, 71% and 55% of Jews, White Evangelical Protestants and White Protestants, respectively, believing that Hamas had no valid reason for attacking Israel. The percentages who believe that Israel is just in fighting Palestinian Arabs is 89%, 74% and 69%, for those same groups respectively.
Muslims had polar opposite reactions, closely followed by secular Americans and Blacks. A sickening 49% of Muslims believe that Hamas had a valid reason for committing the October 7 massacre (and 21% support he way it carried out the attacks), followed by secular Americans and Blacks with 33% and 19% endorsement of the terror. Those groups also believe that Israel is not correct in fighting Hamas, with 54%, 24% and 18% of Muslims, seculars and Blacks, respectively, contesting Israel’s motivations.
Young Americans Support Hamas. The gap between Muslims and Jews is as wide as it is between the young and older Americans.
People over 65 years old think that Israel has a valid reason to pursue Hamas, by 78% to 6%. The percentages among 18 to 29 year-olds is only 38% to 27%. As alarming, the 65+ cohort believes by a 4-to-1 ratio that Hamas has no valid reason to fight Israel, while more young people think Hamas has a valid reason to fight Israel. A sickening 9% of young people believe that the way Hamas carried out the October 7 massacre was appropriate, and 14% have a positive view of Hamas. They are the only age group to have more positive feelings towards Palestinian people than Israelis.
Republicans support Israel’s military. Along with the gap in attitudes among age groups and religions are political leanings. Republicans are twice as likely to support providing military aid to Israel (50% to 25%). Democrats are almost twice as likely to support humanitarian aid for Gazans (66% to 35%).
Generally, among those who completely side with Israelis, Republicans outnumber Democrats by 7-to1. Among those who totally support Palestinians, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8-to-1.
Jews are more divided than Muslims. Muslim Americans are much more fully supportive of Palestinian Arabs, with no positive feelings towards Jews. Almost half – 45% – of American Muslims only support Palestinians while Jews are more divided in loyalty, with only 28% totally committed towards Israel. Jews have the highest share of empathy for all parties in the conflict compared to all other religions.
Limited knowledge amongst Blacks and young people. Not surprisingly, American Jews and Muslims are the most knowledgeable about the war, with Jews by far the most knowledgeable, as 45% of global Jewry lives in Israel, and most Jews are directly connected to the region. Blacks, those 18-to-29 and without a college degree were very ignorant about the regional players and current situation.
CONCLUSION
There is a divide in America regarding Israel and Palestinian Arabs. On one side are Jews, older Americans, Protestants and college educated people who support Israel. On the other, are Muslims, atheists, Blacks, young people and the uneducated who favor Palestinians.
Zionists must do a much better job in educating the world on social media and in high schools, as today’s youth and secular society is frighteningly siding with radical jihadists.
There is an expression that has been used over the past few years called ‘Jew Face’ which has two principle meanings: one is the proliferation of non-Jews playing the role of Jews in movies and shows, while the second has to do with using make-up to dress up these non-Jewish actors to ‘look more Jewish.’ The first category is seen in movies and shows like Golda, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the Lehman Trilogy all with non-Jewish actors, while the second can be exemplified by actor Bradley Cooper sporting a large nose to play Leonard Bernstein in Maestro.
There is a related phenomenon happening in politics called ‘Jew Mask,’ where politicians strut out a prominent Jew to “reeducate” Jews that they have no idea what’s really in their own best interest.
In July 2015, President Obama sent Treasury Secretary Jack Lew out to tell Americans that the Iranian nuclear deal (JCPOA) was a really “strong deal,” even when everybody on the planet knew that it was a farce that left the entire Iranian nuclear program intact. Sending out the Treasury Secretary – instead of the Secretary of Defense – to make the point added to the ridiculous spectacle. Everyone understood that Lew was paraded as the Jew Mask for Obama to convince the world that if an Orthodox Jew thinks that the Islamic Republic of Iran which had sworn to destroy Israel is now effectively neutered, it must be true.
The trotting out of a senior-ranking Jew to state what the president cannot say convincingly happened again this past week, as President Biden (who was Vice President when Lew did his 2015 performance) had New York Senator Chuck Schumer lambast Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite Israel having a civilian-to-terrorist death rate of less than 2:1 in urban combat during the current war from Gaza, when historic norms are closer to 9:1, Schumer excoriated Netanyahu on the Senate floor.
New York Senator Charles Schumer berates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Obama and Biden sent Lew and Schumer to be their Jew Masks, selling a narrative which the majority of Jews don’t believe. They attempted to convince global Jewry that they are actually safe and America has made them so, despite Jews feeling terrified under attack and threat of annihilation.
Jew Face plays out in Hollywood and Broadway, an ugly annoyance of watching the replacement of Jews with non-Jews even though there are plenty of Jews in the performing arts. Conversely, Jew Mask happens in the real world, a terrifying spectacle of observing a prominent Jew under direction of a powerful boss, lie to global Jewry that imminent threats are not lethal, to get the paltry number of Jews to relinquish their basic right of self-defense.
As it does every three months, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) conducted a poll of Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank in March 2024 as the war from Gaza continued to rage. The poll principally focused on the war, post-war, theoretical elections and Israel, and skipped many of the historic questions.
The results were a bit confusing, even for the pollsters.
The October 7 Massacre
Palestinian Arabs continue to support the raping and brutal slaughter of around 1,200 people in Israel. “While support for Hamas’ offensive on October the 7th remains as high as it was three months ago, Palestinian support in the West Bank has in fact dropped by 11 points while, surprisingly, support in the Gaza Strip has increased by 14 points.” As of March 2024, 71% of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza support the heinous October 7 atrocities.
The vast majority of Arabs have still not watched the videos showing Hamas and Gazans torturing Israelis. “80% [now] (compared to 85% in December 2023) say they did not see videos, shown by international news outlets, showing acts committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians, such as the killing of women and children in their homes; only 19% (11% in the West Bank and 30% in the Gaza Strip) saw these videos.” Perhaps not surprisingly, only 5% of Palestinians think Hamas committed war crimes, while 94% think Israel has committed such crimes in the current war. Even among Palestinians who watched Hamas’s actions on October 7, 81% still believe that Hamas didn’t commit war crimes.
Blood soaked room in an Israeli nursery after Gazans slaughtered innocent Jews
The word “hostage” did not appear anywhere in the poll, ignoring one of the main reasons for the current war.
Ongoing War
Three months ago, there was a wide gap between Gazans and Arabs in the West Bank about who will win the war, with 50% of Gazans and 83% of West Bank Arabs believing that Hamas would prevail. That has now shrunken as more Gazans are optimistic about Hamas (56%) while the perceptions in the West Bank declined to 69%, producing an overall decline from 70% to 64% over the last three months.
With the majority of Palestinians believing in Hamas’s victory, a full 59% believe that Hamas will stay in power after the war. That 59% is similar to the 63% who prefer Hamas for the post-war ruling authority.
Palestinian Politics
Palestinians are disgusted by their political leaders. If parliamentary elections were held today, the largest segment (36%) would stay home. Hamas would cruise to victory among the voters winning 30% to only 14% for Fatah.
In electing a new president to replace the current corrupt leader Mahmoud Abbas, a man imprisoned with five life sentences, Marwan Barghouti would win a three-man race which included Abbas and the leader of Hamas, Ismael Haniyeh. However, Hamas would win a two-person race between Haniyeh and Barghouti.
Two-State Solution
A slim majority of 52% of Palestinians reject a two-state solution. The 45% who support a two-state solution is up significantly from 34% and 32% in December 2023 and September 2023, respectively.
War, or as Palestinians like to say “armed struggle,” is still the preferred approach of the local Arabs to end Israeli “occupation.” The percentages are 46%, 25%, 18% for war, negotiations and “peaceful resistance,” respectively. That is a significant change from three months ago when the numbers were 63%, 20% and 13%, respectively. Palestinians are seemingly beginning to tire of the war, even as they remain optimistic about the outcome.
Overall Palestinian Priority
The current war from Gaza is the most pressing issue for Palestinians but the priority is divided between Gazans and West Bank Arabs. A larger 66% of Gazans (up from 64% three months ago) consider the war the most pressing matter, while 50% in the West Bank (up from 42% three months ago), are focused on the war.
The overall most vital issue for Palestinians has become a close race between ending the occupation and forming a state with East Jerusalem as its capital (42%) to 33% desiring a full “right of return” into homes in Israel. This less than ten percentage gap has been a finding in these polls since the May 2021 short war; before that date, there was almost a twenty percentage gap in those two goals.
Conclusion
Palestinians continue to support Hamas and the October 7 massacre, and want to see Hamas continue to rule in Gaza, as they think that ultimately the political-terrorist group will prevail in the war. They seemingly are acknowledging that the battlefield is going horribly but that the world will deliver them a victory, possibly including a new Palestinian state and millions of Arabs pouring into Israel. It’s the 1.5 state solution for Arabs and 0.5 states for Jews as long desired by the fat-left anti-Zionists.
ACTION ITEM
As Palestinians are counting on global support to deliver a victory which they cannot achieve on the battlefield, it is critical to contact elected officials to continue to support Israel and limit support for Palestinians strictly to humanitarian aid until Hamas is completely defeated.
‘The Zone Of Interest‘ is an unusual Holocaust movie. It shows the daily life of the head of the Auschwitz concentration camp inside his home abutting the vast killing factory. Living a peaceful life with his wife and children, the viewer is struck by the carefree life of the Nazi officer and his family, treating the annihilation of European Jewry as simply a normal 9-to-5 job which supports the family in the way they always desired.
Part of the funding for the movie was from the government of Poland, and its influence can be seen in directing the audience to see that the true evil actors were the German Nazis and not Poles, who were portrayed as trying to help Jews in some way, dropping apples around the camp for Jews who managed to escape. Modern Poles are shown at the end of the film, keeping today’s Holocaust museum at the site tidy for tourists who can view the Jewish possessions which were not seized by the Nazis and their families. The actual rampant Polish Jew hatred is invisible in the film.
Vile Jew-hatred continues today, as do new movies, shows and museums focused on the global scourge. Many contrast past antisemitism to modern Jew-hatred such as the remarkable play ‘Prayer for the French Republic‘ as well as ‘Leopolstadt’. Others are devoted just to the Holocaust like the new museum in Amsterdam. Some try to tie antisemitism into the Arab-Israeli conflict like the opera ‘Death of Klinghoffer.‘
Tragically, many of the works of art about noxious Jew hatred have become awash in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It would appear that Jews being cast as victims – whether with posters of kidnapped Israeli Jewish civilians, or a Holocaust museum – is too much for Palestinian Arab supporters who want to see the Jewish State crushed.
At the March 2024 opening of the new Holocaust museum in Amsterdam, hundreds of protestors gathered outside to shout “Free, free Palestine” and “Viva, viva Intifada,” screaming for the destruction of the Jewish State and murder of Jews.
Anti-Israel demonstrators at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam. Pic: AP
In the U.S., The New York Times published a grotesque opinion that compared Israel’s activities in trying to save its hostages and root out the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre to the Nazi family in ‘The Zone of Interest.’ Over-and-again it wrote of the “military siege of Gaza” and “Israel’s assault on Gaza” in a movie review about a Holocaust film.
NY Times lead opinion piece on March 9, 2024
The author, David Klein, could have stated his opinion about the War From Gaza without attaching his comments to a film about the systematic killing of 6 million Jews but he, and many like him, don’t want to. They want to strip Jews of any protection – offensive or defensive. The end of the article makes clear that he is against supplying Israel with weaponry to prosecute the Palestinian terrorist army of Hamas; appending his opinion to a Holocaust film is designed to also remove America’s shield for Israel at the United Nations and with resupplying the Iron Dome missile defense.
To make his refuse stink a bit less, Klein peppered the “AsAJew” line to protect himself from accusations of antisemitism.
Eli Lake penned an article in Commentary Magazine in March 2024 called “A Brief History of the ‘AsAJew’“. Lake sees this as a phenomenon of far-left diaspora Jews, as even progressives in Israel know that Hamas must be destroyed after the heinous barbarous attack which the terrorist group has threatened to repeat.
Lake described a long history of AsAJews during moments of Jewish suffering appealing to the antisemitic attackers to continue to persecute. He wrote that centuries ago, “the AsAJews of their day lobbied their hosts in the Diaspora to banish or convert the Jewish people to Christianity and to confiscate and burn the Talmud.” He details the story of a man in the 15th century named Johannes Pfefferkorn who converted from Judaism and helped fuel a mini crusade against his former co-religionists.
Times have changed some of the nouns in the anti-Semitic Mad Lib, but the story reads familiar.
Lake wrote, “In the Middle Ages, AsAJew converts were pawns the Church used to spread lies about the Talmud. In 2024, the AsAJews are not converts to Christianity. They are instead converts to the false prophecy of left-wing social-justice activism…. The anti-Semites of the Middle Ages needed AsAJews to provide credentials for the lies that justified their pogroms and expulsions. Today, Hamas and its allies in Iran need the AsAJews to persuade the Hague, European governments, and the White House to delegitimize Israel’s right to self-defense.”
I will add some observations on top of Lake’s. For centuries, antisemites including AsAJews, came for the Jews by attacking the religion itself. They concocted stories about Passover matzah in blood libels and the Talmud teaches black magic. Today’s cohort attack Jews and Jewish history, not the religion. They mock the Holocaust. They claim Jews have no history in the land of Israel and are “colonizers” who stole land from Arabs, and that Jews never had holy temples in Jerusalem so should be banned from prayer in a site that is solely holy to Muslims.
By ignoring religion, the modern day antisemites refuse to carry the antisemitic mantle because they are not attacking the religion, just bad actors who happen to be Jewish. The AsAJew allies provide a wide fig leaf for the charade, much as they’ve done for centuries.
Museums and films devoted to the heinous slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust, which would normally demonstrate the profound need for Jews to have self-determination, are being used by the alt-left and Islamic radicals to argue that Jews should be left to the wolves of Hamas. Some are not as shrill, and offer a tepid “both sides” support, blind to their echoing former President Donald Trump’s Charlottesville remarks.
‘The Zone of Interest’ Winning Best International Film on March 10, 2024, with callout to Israeli and Palestinian victims of terror
As antisemitism scales to terrifying levels around the world, the alt-left and Islamic radicals are turning works of art and remembrances of the deliberate mass butchering of Jews on October 7 and during the Holocaust into calls to attack Jews and the one Jewish State. Many progressive Jews are appalled and are abandoning their former partners-in-crime as now-revealed naked antisemites. But the AsAJews have remained steadfast and will share names and addresses of the Zionists, marking Jews as zealots who need to be punished for the good of mankind once again.
On January 29, 2021, the United Nations General Assembly published document A/75/729 which provided an update about Al Qaeda and ISIS, seemingly the only groups which the world agrees are terrorist groups. It contained a section called “Increasing support for the victims of terrorism,” which noted the importance of “healing” for victims and the need to be sensitive to events which might be “triggering or adding to their trauma.“
It was an interesting document for the UN, as two weeks earlier on January 16, 2021, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the news that the Palestinians would be holding elections, which he said would give “renewed legitimacy to national institutions, including a democratically elected Parliament and Government in Palestine.” It is baffling and alarming that the head of the United Nations would want to give “legitimacy” to an election which included the deeply anti-Semitic terrorist group, Hamas.
Guterres added that the election would “contribute to restarting a process towards a negotiated two-State solution based on the pre-1967 lines, and in accordance with relevant UN resolutions, bilateral agreements and international law.” Perhaps he never read Hamas’ foundational charter which is vociferously opposed to the basic existence of Israel and a peace process, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time.” (Article 13)
Now, three years after the leader of the United Nations called for Hamas to be part of the Palestinian political process while also calling for support for terrorist victims’ trauma, we are witnessing countries calls for Palestinian unity in the aftermath of the Palestinian armies of Hamas and PIJ butchering 1,200 innocent Israelis.
Last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh resigned from office in light of the current war saying “I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the new reality in Gaza and the need for a Palestinian-Palestinian consensus based on Palestinian unity and the extension of unity of authority over the land of Palestine.“
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov welcomed the move towards Palestinian unity offering “Jesus Christ was born in Palestine. One of his sayings is: ‘A house divided against itself will not stand.’ Christ is honoured by both Muslims and Christians. I think that quote reflects the challenge of restoring Palestinian unity.” Leave aside that Jesus was a Jew and born in the land of Israel, the gist of Lavrov’s desires are understood.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed a call for Palestinian rule over both the West Bank and Gaza while being unclear whether he supported a unified Palestinian government as he has denounced Hamas’s rule in Gaza. He shared in November 2023, “we need to see and get to, in effect, unity of governance when it comes to Gaza and the West Bank, and ultimately to a Palestinian state.”
Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad speaks in an interview with Lebanese channel LBC on October 24, 2023 calling for more butchering of Israelis. (Screenshot: X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
A Palestinian government that is peaceful and demilitarized which governs all Palestinian territory can theoretically make peace with Israel, however, the majority of Palestinian Arabs approve of Hamas and its aims of destroying Israel and ethnically cleansing the land of Jews. Therefore, one can either have a “legitimate” Palestinian government which speaks for local Arabs which is at war with Israel, or an illegitimate Palestinian government which does not truly represent Palestinian Arabs making a peace agreement with Israel.
The United States seems to be pushing for the latter – a peace agreement over enduring peace – hoping that Israelis will ignore the leadership farce and that the Palestinian street will grow to accept the Jewish State over time.
Coupled with such approach, the United States will be demanding that the Israeli victims of terror and the entire country, ignore their profound trauma.
The sadistic massacre committed by Palestinian Arabs from Gaza on October 7 will impact the emotional and mental health of Israelis for a generation. That thousands of Palestinians could enter Israel and rape, mutilate and burn alive 1,200 people, brought back closeted inherited memories of the atrocities of the Holocaust and pogroms for Israelis and global Jewry. That Palestinians cheered the event and a majority support the heinous attacks, has scorched the sensibilities of Israelis, a trauma of the past that they will carry every day.
Palestinian leaders remain in control of Gaza and broadcast that they are committed to repeating the massacre, that “there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight…. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again.” The deep-seated evil ideology makes Israelis fear for their future.
Outside of Israel, hearing college professors say that they were “exhilarated” by the mass rape and butchering of Jews and felt “jubilation and awe” at the attacks has infused terror into the hearts of diaspora Jews, the 55% of global Jewry who live outside of their homeland in the land of Israel. Jews see that the attackers are not just Gazans but their global supporters.
For Jews, October 7 was a continuum of thousands of years of antisemitism brought forward to today and tomorrow. After centuries of instilled knowledge that nothing has ever appeased anti-Jewish zealots, Jews around the world look at the Israeli Defense Forces – a new army which was absent for 2,000 years – to reshape their future.
Israeli Defense Forces sing Israeli national anthem of “Hatikvah”, “The Hope”
For Palestinian Arabs, the IDF is their sworn enemy. Raised to believe that Israeli Jews are an illegal occupying force who stole Arab land, the IDF represents the boot on their necks enabling that crime to continue. As they watch tens of thousands of Gazans die and their infrastructure get obliterated by that army, they seethe in the present.
So despite the clear military trouncing of the Palestinian army of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the local Arabs are optimistic for their future. They are playing the long game and believe that Israel will soon cease to exist. In a June 2023 poll, “two-thirds say Israel will not celebrate the centenary of its establishment, and the majority believes that the Palestinian people will be able in the future to recover Palestine and return its refugees to their homes.”
The Islamic jihadists in the region believe that the IDF and Israeli Jews are evil but temporary. They see the tidal wave of global support crushing the “occupation army” and sweeping Jews from the region. The United States is Israel’s last column of support, and Islamic extremists see it buckling in the polls. With the help of Iran, Qatar and Turkey, they see a “liberation” of their land before Israel celebrates its 100th birthday.
Palestinians take dead Israeli bodies as trophies as part of October 7 atrocities
The IDF is the perceived game-changer for global Jewry, a chance to fight the toxic and violent antisemitism that has been killing Jews for thousands of years. It is the instrument to terminate their collective trauma and protect the ability to coexist in peace.
That same IDF is viewed by Palestinian Arabs and their supporters as deeply evil, causing a “genocide” of Gazans who, in their view, just want to live in peace in their land: everything from the River to the Sea, devoid of Jews.
Cornell University professor Russell Rickford celebrating the October 7 raping and slaughter of Israeli Jews
October 7th is fading in the world’s memory and is losing influence on opinions and policies. There is declining empathy for the ongoing Jewish trauma, as people focus on the latest body count of Palestinians. As part of that transition, the IDF is becoming the story as intended by the jihadists. The anti-Zionist extremists believe that neutering the Israeli army is the pathway to alleviating Palestinian trauma and perpetuating Jewish suffering.
Hamas might soon fade from public discourse. The political-terrorist force will blend into a new organization, having met its primary goals: the end of American support of the IDF as the pathway for the destruction of Israel. The political-terrorist group always knew that it could never defeat Israel militarily; its war mission was to weaken American support for the Jewish State, for its jihadi allies in Iran, Syria and Lebanon to strike the fatal blow.
ACTION ITEM
Write your politicians to maintain military aid to Israel to not only confront the Palestinian army but Hezbollah, Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Sunday morning is a time for protests in Barcelona, Spain. Advocates for Peru took their customary spot on top of La Rambla. About ten people listened to a woman yelling into a megaphone.
Just ahead of the small gathering were thirty people protesting Russia’s war on Ukraine. They held placards and then marched together through Catalunya square of people feeding pigeons.
Further ahead were 2,000 people marching with Palestinian flags down the main street of Pg. de Gracia. Led by a ten people wearing kaffiyehs on a truck, they marched with signs calling to “Free Palestine” and “Boycott Israel.”
Thousands marched for Palestinians in Barcelona, Spain on February 25, 2024 (photo: First One Through)
Many of the marchers wore kaffiyehs and held signs “it did not start with Hamas.” They chanted in Spanish about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and blamed the United States for “Genocide.”
There were no counter-protestors.
The Jews of Spain have long since been vanquished. Once the greatest center of Jewry in the 1400s, Spain is amongst the dozens of countries which now have fewer than 25,000 Jews. By way of comparison, there are 27 cities in the United States with over 25,000 Jews.
But Muslims have returned to Spain. After the Arab Spring and Syrian Civil War brought thousands of Muslim refugees and immigrants to Europe, many have once again settled in the Iberian peninsula.
Consequently, the street narrative – populated by many local Catholics – was neither nuanced nor balanced. There was no mention of the Israeli hostages or Hamas burning families alive. No demand for the Hamas rapists to face justice. Just for Israel to be replaced “from the River to the Sea.”
Pro Palestinian protestors in Barcelona
Catholic religious fanaticism routed Jews from Europe 500 years ago. Today, Muslim jihadi extremism is attempting to do the same in both Europe and the land of Israel.
There used to be jokes about how to handle one’s racist uncle during the holidays. Now the question is how to deal with a person’s antisemitic niece.
While many older cisgender White men continue to be challenged by the changing nature of America, a large percentage of women aged 18-34 (and under 24 in particular) have a hatred for Jews that would make Nazis blush.
The results from the December Harvard/Harris poll about views of Israel and Hamas segmented by age were shocking. While well over 90% of people over 55 viewed the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion and slaughter in Israel as an act of terrorism, only slightly more than 70% of the 18-34 cohort believed the killing of 1,200 people to be terrorism. An estimated 90% of people over 55 thought there was no justification for the Hamas attack, but 60% of people 18-24 thought the massacre was justified.
Young people are evenly split on supporting Hamas and Israel, while almost every older person supports Israel. After the October 7 attack, 76% of 18-24 year-olds thought Hamas is a rational actor with whom Israel can negotiate while 87% of those over 65 believe Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Consequently, 84% of seniors oppose a ceasefire now that would leave Hamas in place while 67% of the youth think a ceasefire should happen immediately and leave Hamas intact.
In the aftermath of the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust, a majority of 51% of 18-24 year-olds think Israel should be dissolved and handed to Hamas and the Palestinians. Only 4% of those over 65 hold such views, with 71% preferring two states and 25% supporting Palestinians moving into neighboring Arab countries.
Lastly, the poll touched on gender-related violence. Two-thirds of seniors believe that human rights groups did not adequately condemn the rape of Israeli women, while 80% of those 18-24 thought that women’s rights organizations condemned Hamas sufficiently.
These findings confirm a January 2023 ADL poll which found “Young adults have more anti-Israel sentiment than older generations.”
The age divide is much the same regarding antisemitism in the United States.
An estimated 90% of people over 65 years old think that Jews face harassment on college campuses which drops to about two-thirds for 18-34 year-olds. Much of that disparity seems to do with whether words constitute harassment, as 92% of people over 65 think that calling for the genocide of Jews should be against university rules, while 53% of people 18-24 think students should be free to call for the genocide of Jews.
In addition to penalizing particular speech, one of the drivers seems to be driven by ideology. Roughly 81% of people over 65 oppose the notion that people should be viewed through the lens of White oppressors and non-White oppressed classes of people, while 79% of 18-24 year-olds support the ideology. Among those over 65, 91% believe that Jews should not fall into the White oppressor class while 67% of 18-24 year-olds believe Jews should be in the oppressor class.
What has driven the enormous disparity of opinions in which young people side with terrorists who slaughter Jews? What drives so many 18 to 24 year-olds to be so anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist?
A few ideas to review including a post-9/11 world, indoctrination in schools, race, social media and human rights groups.
Post-9/11 World
Americans who were adults in 2000 and 2001 can easily remember the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the continued heinous killing of Israeli Jews by Palestinian Arabs from 2000 to 2004. The clarity about the jihadi extremists perpetrating the disgusting murders was apparent to all, so the support for the United States and Israel responding to the attacks was wide and deep.
For young people who do not remember the attacks but only the consequences – America’s 20-year long war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Israeli Security Barrier which was put up to stop the flow of Palestinian Arab terrorists – the cause-and-effect is now inverted. Rather than see the Security Barrier as the effective reaction to jihadi terrorism, it is viewed as an obstacle to coexistence. Rather than appreciate the lack of mass casualty attacks in the U.S. over the past two decades, young people question why America fought wars abroad for so long.
Young people have come to believe that western powers are “imperialist” and wage wars to subjugate others. They have internalize the Iranian narrative of the US and Israel being “big Satan” and “Little Satan”, respectively, aggressively fighting Muslims and people of color for no reason.
When the 2014 Gaza War concluded around the same time as the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, the SJP chapters started to align themselves with the Black community in an effort of allyship. It created narratives of “Gaza to Detroit” and “Ferguson to Palestine” as if the two have anything remotely in common.
Muslims claimed it did – and latched onto the oppressor/oppressed narrative which has now become university doctrine over the past decade. Teacher union bosses pushed the notion into lower schools as well, that Jews should be seen as part of the elite “ownership class” who try to keep others down.
Coupled with this incorrect portrayal of American Jews as powerful is the mischaracterization of Israel as a European colonial project. In university departments focused on decolonization, Israel is being cast as a racist state which must be dismantled. There is no subtle debate about Israel/Palestine for young people; they have been taught that Jews are not indigenous to Israel and “stole” Palestinian land.
As toxic ideologies like this inevitably metastasize, the calls to actively be “anti-racist” compelled students to become vocal anti-Zionists. Elective courses on “anti-racism” in California universities soon became mandatory in high schools, infecting the minds of tens of thousands.
While older Americans were spared this indoctrination, many Americans under 30 have been schooled in antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
UN and Human Rights Groups Slander
Universities celebrated when Amnesty International published a report in February 2022 calling Israel an “apartheid” state. It gave credibility to anti-Zionists who had long defamed Israel at will – like The New York Times – using a third party’s definition rather than state personal bias.
The Obama Administration’s last middle finger to Israel as it departed was allowing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass which made it illegal for Jews to live east of the 1949 Armistice Lines with Jordan, including in Judaism’s holiest location of the Old City of Jerusalem. While older people may recall that Jews have been a majority of Jerusalem since the 1860s, younger people have grown up where Jews living in Jerusalem is an act of evil colonization.
Racial Overview of Youth
Today’s youth is much more multi-ethnic than older generations.
America’s youth has many more non-White people while older Americans are mostly White. According to Pew Research, the most common age for Whites was 58 in 2019, and a much younger 29 for Asians, 27 for Blacks and 11 for Hispanics.
Among 70 year-olds, there are about 2.5 million White people but not even 1 million non-White people. However, among 20 year-olds, there are roughly 2.3 million White people and only slightly fewer, 2.1 million non-Whites, roughly an even split.
The multi-ethnic youth have come to see their White Jewish peers as part of the “White oppressor” class. They incorrectly assume that Israeli Jews are mostly White, like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, White Ashkenazi Jews make up only one-third of the Israeli population.
Race In Colleges
The race of college students varies by the type of school. Overall, 42.3% of students are White, 17.4% Hispanic, 10.6% Black, 5.8% Asian according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The figures change dramatically when considering the type of school and degree.
At private, nonprofit four-year universities, 47% of students were white and 33% of students were Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). A similar mix was found at public four-year schools where 46% of students were white, 38% were BIPOC. Shorter associate degrees attracted more minorities, with private two-year schools, 38% of students were white, 44% were BIPOC and public two-year schools, 29% of students were white, 42% were BIPOC.
More people are opting to not attend colleges, viewing them as expensive and not worth the time or investment. White enrollment declined the most from 2018 to 2022, dropping by 17.4%, while Black and Hispanic enrollment declined by 13.6% and 3.6%, respectively. Men are skipping universities in greater numbers than women, with women now accounting for 8.3 million students compared to 6.1 million men.
Despite women and minorities making up a greater share of college students, the professors are still mostly white, with White men making up 39% of all faculty and White women, 35%.
While White people make up a plurality of four-year degree programs, the schools have made very direct actions to change their faculty and curricula. They have implemented DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs, which are getting a lot of attention after the resignation of Harvard’s Black female president who failed to clearly condemn antisemitism at a congressional hearing.
Universities are not simply deploying indoctrinating students in a new socialist ideology compared to past generations; they are preaching to a more muti-ethnic population who are embracing the theology.
Social Media
The socialist antisemitic educational system deserves part of the blame but social media has fostered the toxicity as well.
While smartphones came to the world in 2008, the social media phenomenon on phones really took off from 2010 to 2015. Young people began to rely on news from influencers they followed (think sports stars, models, entertainers) rather than on professional news outlets. Young people fled to these idiots who offered opinions rather than facts, on platforms that pushed engagement via extremism rather than nuanced debate.
People like Kanye West, Kyrie Irving and Bella Hadid have many more people reading their drivel than CNN or the Wall Street Journal, especially young people. The youth get to enjoy the thrill of interacting with their stars rather than sit passively taking in boring news. Instagram became the simplest (fewest words) and most popular social media platform for young people while older Americans barely touched it.
And here also, race plays a part.
According to a May 2020 PRRI report, “young adults (ages 18-29) are notably more likely to use social media frequently than other age groups. Nearly half of young Americans (47%) report using social media sources frequently, compared to one in four (25%) Americans ages 30-49, about one in ten (11%) Americans ages 50-64, and only 3% of senior Americans (ages 65 and older).” It added that “Hispanic Americans (30%) are substantially more likely than white Americans (19%) and black Americans (19%) to be frequent social media user.”
According to Statista, Blacks are as likely as Hispanics to be active on social media, both much more than Whites. Daily use of social media is 46% for Blacks, 44% for Hispanics and only 34% for Whites. The gap in never-users shows the same contrast with only 18% of both Blacks and Hispanics never using social media and 30% of Whites never using it. So while 2.5 times as many Blacks and Hispanics use social media daily compared to never users, the numbers are almost the same for Whites.
So while over 70% of older Americans are White and not active on social media (and more inclined to use Facebook), the younger generation is almost 50/50 White/non-White and active on Instagram.
The Chinese company Tik Tok has a similar pattern. Roughly half of viewers are under 29 years old and 57% of all viewers are female. Almost no one over 55 uses the platform. Further, 80% of the content is made by people under 24 years old.
While the United States has the most viewers, it is followed immediately by Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. Almost all of the countries where the platform has the highest penetration are Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait, followed by Thailand, Qatar and Malaysia.
Antisemitism in Young People / Non-Whites
Aggregating this information leads to a real divide among older and younger Americans. Those 65 and over tend to be White, remember 9/11 and the Second Intifada, get their news from newspapers made in western countries and went to work believing in meritocracy. That’s in sharp contrast to Americans 18-24 who are are as likely to be non-White as White; have no recollection of 9/11, just the War on Terror; get their news from social media stars and very young people alongside the Muslim world and Russia; and receive an education that meritocracy is a myth and that they live under the thumb of a White patriarchy which imposes its imperialist whims on the Global South from where many of the youths’ ancestors originated.
Young people don’t comprehend that Jews were active in the 1960s Civil Rights movement and view Jews as part of the White elite. They don’t believe the FBI Hate Crime reports that Jews are the most targeted group of hate crimes, and they hold antisemitic views that Jews and Zionists are deeply racist who only care about money, power and themselves.
Older Americans are relatively homogenous and see a disappointing new generation which hates America and its ally Israel. They watch young people loudly cheering the mass slaughter of Jews in Israel, and call the young socialists and jihadists out as antisemites. For their part, the young see the older generation as impossibly out-of-touch White racists, unwilling to let the multi-ethnic future take the reigns of power.
Jews know math and their impossibly small numbers, and turn to the government and cling to law enforcement to protect them from the percolating tidal wave of hate.
First One Through 