On June 24, 2023, I wrote an article called “The Terrorism of Emasculated Palestinians” that highlighted the work of Sanam Naraghi Anderlini of the International Civil Society Action Network. Anderlini essentially posited that terrorism often attracts men because leaders take advantage of male egos. She asked “what does it mean to be a man? Whether in Liberia, Nigeria, Palestine, Jamaica, Yemen, Syria, Iraq.”
Anderlini contended that four themes emerge as critical elements for male self-definition and worth, the 4 “Ps”: Provide, Protect, Prestige and Procreation. She argued that men living in societies where they failed in their “manly” roles to provide for the family monetarily, to protect them, to have a position of prestige or power, or to procreate and have progeny, were easy prey for radical actors.
Just over one hundred days after writing the article, Palestinian Arabs did not only commit the largest single day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, they committed the most violent and brutal attacks against Jewish women on a single day ever. It is therefore worth reviewing October 7 beyond a battle for land or about religion but regarding gender.
Hamas takes Jewish women hostages and rape and mutilate others
Provide. Hamas rules Gaza and has made little effort to build an economy. They are wards of the world taking charity endlessly from the United Nations and donor countries. They spend money and time on tunnels to invade Israel rather than invest in their society.
Palestinians completely failed to provide and would rather steal the fruits of Israeli labor than sweat to provide for their families and communities. Should they fail to take over Israel, they know that donor countries will pay to rebuild the Strip and funnel monies into the society which will come to their families as “martyr payments” for killing Jews.
Palestinian society has built a terrorist-payment infrastructure, with global approval, in which they can provide for their families by engaging in terrorism.
Protect. Members of Hamas protect their own soldiers but not their families. They leave women and children above ground as cannon fodder while they stay protected in underground tunnels. The Palestinian men do not even pretend to try to protect, and focus solely on attacking Israelis, young and old, male and female alike.
Prestige. Shockingly, despite intentionally failing to provide and protect their families and communities, Palestinian’s toxic culture gives these terrorists prestige. Scores of schools, squares and sporting tournaments are named after mass murderers. Imams bless the killers as the holiest members of society.
There is little to no prestige to attain in Palestinian society outside the depravity-prestige of slaughtering Jews.
Procreation. Israeli Jews now have a higher fertility rate than Palestinian Arabs. Some of the reason is because Arab women are becoming more educated and fertility rates decline everywhere as women have greater educational attainment, as well as crowded conditions in Gaza.
Consider the 4″P”s and deep “deformity in Palestinian culture” as noted by leading Arab American James Zogby. Palestinians make no attempts to provide for or to protect Arab women in their households. They sacrifice Gaza and Gazans for the land they covet across the fence.
Regarding women, Palestinian men internalized that once they committed to abandoning their own women and children for their cause, those frolicking, relatively rich Jewish women must be hunted. The existence of free, dancing Jewish women on land that Arabs believe is rightfully their own, mocks emasculated Palestinians.
Anderlini said that generally, many men who try and fail the 4 “P”s to provide/ protect/ prestige and procreate, may turn towards terrorism out of desperation. But alas, tens of thousands of Palestinian men – perhaps millions – deliberately abandon their homes and families to reap the rewards of the terrorist-payment infrastructure and depravity-prestige built into Palestinian society.
On October 7, Palestinian men turned their backs and sacrificed their own Arab women, and descended to rape, torture, mutilate and slaughter Jewish girls and women by design.
ACTION ITEM
Destroy the terrorist-payment infrastructure. Demand elected officials not give any money to Palestinians unless and until the pay-to-slay program is terminated and no terrorist group sits in power.
End the depravity-prestige philosophy. No monies or support from any country until Palestinians remove the names of terrorists from schools, squares and public places.
Several countries met in Cairo, Egypt on October 21 in a “Cairo Peace Summit,” a most disgraceful naming of an event in the aftermath of a savage Arab terrorist attack that killed over 1,400 people in Israel. The naming was presumably meant to shield the barbarians and their supporters in the Arab world.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II certainly took the cue and pretended to talk about peace, while intentionally adding fuel to the flames.
He lambasted Israel for nearly eight minutes, starting recent history AFTER the Hamas attacks, making Israel appear as the instigator. He ignored Hamas’s butchering and burning people alive. He ignored Palestinian Arabs seizing over 200 hostages. He whitewashed the scale and brutality. Instead, he essentially accused Israel of arbitrarily attacking Gazan civilians rather than attempting to bring Hamas terrorists to justice.
In short, the Jordanian king was instigating a “global intifada” in front of his multi-country audience, inciting yet another pogrom against Jews while the Jewish State was still trying to identify the dead.
Jordanian King Abdullah II at poorly named “Cairo Peace Summit” October 21, 2023
While everyone understands that the Jordanian king is very weak, with over half of the country’s population outside his Hashemite tribe, his vitriol against Israel cannot be excused and can never conceal the heinous actions of the Satans of Gaza.
Perhaps this attack will be the final straw, and Israel will pull the courtesy it extended the Jordanian waqf in Jerusalem, and hand it to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as part of a new alliance with partners who can thwart Iran and its proxies.
Gaslighting is the action of repeatedly lying to someone to make them question their sanity and truth in order to control them. It is typically used in a relationship between two people where the liar continues to fabricate reality to make the other party docile to blindly follow the wishes of the deceiver.
The Palestinians and anti-Zionists use the disinformation technique in the media and schools to fictionalize Jewish history, in order to dismantle the Jewish State.
Holocaust Denial
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial. It remains a foundation of his worldview.
On September 6, 2023, Abbas claimed that Adolf Hitler wasn’t really an anti-Semite but hated Jews because of their “social role” and actions in society. The goal of the statement was clear: Jews brought their own destruction upon themselves through bad behavior. Palestinians are similarly not the antisemites portrayed in polls (93% according to the ADL), but hate Jews because of their actions in Israel/Palestinian territories.
Holocaust denial is part of the fabric of Palestinian society at this point. In August 2022, Abbas said that the Israelis had perpetuated “50 Holocausts” upon the Palestinians. Hamas, which controls 58% of the Palestinian parliament, wrote in its 1988 foundational charter that Jews are behind all of wars in the world and behave like Nazis themselves.
The world is picking up the vile Holocaust denial and inserting it into the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Roger Cohen wrote an editorial in The New York Times that equated the Holocaust and the Nakba. Nikolas Kristof wrote that today’s Anne Frank is a Syrian Girl trying to flee a civil war. Somehow the methodical targeting of defenseless Jews by their own government for torture and annihilation has become a metaphor for a migraine.
The steady toxic drip is intended to make Jews forget and distort the horrors of the Holocaust to advance pro-Palestinian goals. Perhaps some Israeli Jews will move to their grandparents’ countries in Europe. Maybe Israel will lay down its defensive weapons and let Iran build a nuclear weapon and not react to Palestinian terrorism with such force. Surely if the Europeans and United States who fought and defeated the evil Nazis echo Holocaust denial, Jews may join the chorus and revise their understanding of the slaughter of the last generation.
Israel is NOT the Homeland of Jews
Abbas’s September 6 speech led off with a history lesson that European Jews are not really Jews but converts from Khazar.
All of them.
Every European Jew that was forced to convert to Christianity or Islam, or was killed in pogroms, the Inquisition or the Holocaust over the past 1,100 years weren’t even real Jews.
Abbas is trying to miseducate the world that he cannot be an antisemite for hating Israeli Jews because their not even Semites. Further, they cannot claim any roots in the holy land laid out in the Bible because they are only newer converts in the case of Ashkenazi Jews, and Mizrachi Jews are actually from the Arabian peninsula (3:10 in speech).
The Palestinian leader called the United Kingdom and the United States “enemies” of the Palestinian people (4:30 in speech) for advancing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate which recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” when those Ashkenazi Jews had no historical connection to the land.
Abbas also absolved the Arab world for expunging its Jews after World War II. He accused Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion of making life unbearable for the Jews in the Muslim world so they would be forced to flee to Israel (5:50 in the speech).
Abbas gaslighted Jews that the Muslim world is not antisemitic and did not chase one million Jews out of their homes. Jews did it to themselves, much as Abbas’ doctoral thesis claimed that Zionists convinced Hitler to make life impossible for Jews in Europe to force them to immigrate to a land that was not even their homeland.
Repeated often enough, gaslighting works. People adopt the new narrative and blindly follow the parties with the power to mark history. Jews did it to themselves, as seen in millions of Jews who believe that the Kotel, the Western wall in Jerusalem, is Judaism’s holiest space and not the Temple Mount itself.
There is a new group called The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism which is trying to decouple the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies program in universities, and place it in “settler colonial studies” and put it in the context of “repressive work and solidarities” since “Zionism’s project extends beyond the borders of Palestine.” These efforts are now being pushed in the University of California school systems and at New York University. While there is pushback, over time, the antisemitic radicals will likely prevail.
The insidious inanity that Zionism is racism AND colonialism will eventually be taught to your children.
The binding of Palestinian antisemitism with Critical Race Theory is part of the global intifada to divorce Jews from the holy land and paint them as evil interlopers. The disinformation campaign is being waged to isolate Jews and make them doubt their own history and moral standing, to ultimately cave to the jihadist demands of the Palestinian wolves next door.
In the aftermath of The Great War, Germans fought amongst themselves in local riots trying to attain power amidst the highest inflation in years. Disgruntled masses used their new democratic rights to air radical views, as the rulers in their defeated lands were cast as failed and incompetent.
The phobia of the middle class was fertile soil for agitators. Activists took to printing fliers and giving speeches in beer halls to instigate the mob.
Adolf Hitler was among them, part of the German Worker’s Party, later to become the most infamous.
Hitler’s provocative nature got him into arguments with small groups at the time but by the following year, he was addressing thousands.
On February 24, 1920, Hitler took the stage at the Hofbrauhaus beer hall in Munich and addressed nearly 2,000 people. He laid out his 25-point plan designed to empower the labor movement. It called for a right to work, seizing profits and income that did not come from work, a redistribution of profits, an end to the dominance of capitalism, a large welfare state, and a remaking of the educational system.
The plan also zeroed in on Jews and immigrants. It declared that no Jew is or can be a German and therefore all are ineligible for citizenship. It labeled Jews as inherently materialistic and opposed to everything which Germany stood for. It sought to stop immigration of non-Germans.
As part of the platform, Hitler called for a control of the press which he said spread lies. He demanded that only those he deemed as “German” could be writers and own financial interests in the press.
While Hitler’s speech was initially heckled, by the end of the talk, the crowd cheered. They embraced his call for a revolution to end capitalism, redistribute wealth, remake the educational system, seize control of the press and expunge the Jews.
The movement gained momentum and followers, so changed its name to a national organization, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party. By the 1930s, the party grew to 400,000 people and would soon gain seats in government. It removed Jews from positions in government, lines of business and seized their property. Within a decade, it launched a war which killed millions, including one-third of Europe’s Jews.
Democratic Socialists of America, Working Families Party, Justice Democrats 2017-Present
In the United States, the Working Families Party has been around since 1998, fielding far left-wing candidates, while sometimes backing more “mainstream” Democratic candidates aligned with many of its views, such as Massachusetts’s Senator Elizabeth Warren. It has many overlaps with the Democratic Socialists of America, seeing the core of their beliefs in socialism. Their common goal to “achieve equitable distribution of resources” is deeply anti-capitalist. Their champion is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who frequently derides capitalism.
The extreme left-wing did not have sway in politics until the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency. His election launched a countering force in a new powerful group called Justice Democrats in January 2017. In the 2018 election cycle it fielded 12 candidates including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who won in New York. Six other endorsed candidates also won.
The platform of the Justice Democrats includes several items which ring familiar from Hitler’s platform a century earlier. It includes: a redistribution of wealth in “reclaim[ing] lost capital and put money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans” because “growing disparities in income and wealth among our nation’s people have long-term impacts on our population“; “Enact[ing] a Federal Jobs Guarantee“; vilifying the government in a call to “Abolish ICE” because “it has turned into a state-funded terror group“, among other demands.
The progressive fringe were open about their plans for wealth redistribution in 2019. While running for president, Democrat Bill De Blasio said “There’s plenty of money in this city. It’s just in the wrong hands.” The goal was to seize wealth from those deemed undeserving and transfer it to working families, a clear effort to buy votes with illegal theft.
While the radical groups began to coalesce into a force during the Trump administration, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-1 instilled a greater sense of government incompetence and fear of one’s neighbors actually being able to kill them and their parents with their physical presence. As in the high inflationary post-World War I Germany, the riots about police brutality and COVID ushered in a ripe market for political agitators. The backdrop enabled the alt-left extremists to gather more power in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. New members of congress like Rashia Tlaib (D-MI) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) came to power with the backing of the radical rhetoric to “defund the police”, change schools by teaching critical race theory, and push a massive effort to redistribute wealth.
Where today’s American Socialists and the Nazis differ is regarding immigrants. The American left-wing fringe views them as the core of “working families”, whereas they label Whites as inherently racist. However, the Jews are viewed with identical disdain, the elite and capitalist among the White racist class.
The Center of Intersectionality- Antisemitic Muslim Women of Color
The far left-wing backing the “average working person” as a person of color has led to its candidates being almost exclusively non-White. While they may sometimes support slightly more mainstream politicians like Senators Warren (D-MA) and Sanders (D-VT), the movement is driven by minorities.
The most vocal anti-Semites in this alt-left fringe are Muslim Women. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) are the most prominent and powerful, having national platforms in congress. New York City Council member Shahana Hanif is a local politician in the largest and most Jewish city in America, while other agitators include Linda Sarsour, Zahra Billoo and recent CUNY law graduate Fatima Mohammed. More than only advancing the “burn it down” mentality, they advocate a revolution which targets Jews as the enemy.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Rashida Tlaib is a Palestinian-American Muslim woman representing Michigan’s 12th district since 2019. Her shrill voice in congress started immediately as she declared that “we’re going to impeach the motherf*cker,” referring to President Trump. Her zealous attacks have also come for Israel, with lies that it commits “apartheid.” She proposed several anti-Israel pieces of legislation and advocates for the destruction of the Jewish State with tweets “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She has even demanded an Israel litmus test for anyone to be included in the progressive camp.
Omar’s comments continued to inflame people when she dismissed the radical jihadists who killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/11/2011 with a passing “some people did something,” and later compared the terrorist groups Hamas and the Taliban to Israel and the United States. She has also yelled at people who do not label Israel as an “apartheid” state, saying “they need to get on the right side of history.” She attacks her attackers by claiming that they are racist, misogynistic and Islamophobes, to deflect from her own ingrained racism and antisemitism.
Linda Sarsour is not an elected official but hobnobs with many. She’s led the Women’s March and is a loud voice alternately yelling disgusting and stupid lies that Israel is an apartheid state and that Jesus was a Palestinian. She’s vilified Zionism, tweeting “nothing is creepier than Zionism. Challenge racism.” She has sided with the terrorist group Hamas, and argued that people shouldn’t “humanize” Israelis.
Zahra Billoo (CAIR)
Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR). She has said that “Israel is an apartheid, racist, terrorist state and it commits war crimes as a hobby.” She gave a speech that the Jewish State is backed by all sorts of Jews, even progressives who claim to be friends by are really the enemy: “Know your enemies, and I’m not going to sugar-coat that. They are your enemies. There are organizations and infrastructure out there who are working to harm you. Make no mistake of it. They would sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back. I mean the Zionist organizations, I mean the foreign policy organizations that say they’re not Zionists but want a two-state solution. I’m not a Palestinian myself but it’s my understanding that that is laughable. So know your enemies.… We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. Because just because they’re your friend today, doesn’t mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights. So oppose the vehement fascists but oppose the polite Zionists too. They are not your friends.“
Fatima Mohammed (CUNY Law)
Fatima Mohammed is just a recent graduate from law school but is emblematic of the problem. She gave graduation remarks at CUNY Law School where she said they all needed to “fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world,” and students needed to “speak out against Israeli settler colonialism.” She received sustained applause throughout her remarks.
The obvious should be stated that not all Muslim women are antisemitic or anti-Israel. Similarly, many of the shrill antisemitic and anti-Zionist voices of the progressive wing are not coming from Muslims or women, such as Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA7).
1930s Nazi Party and 2020s Progressive Wing
The core of the intersectional left SOUNDS a lot like the Nazi party of 100 years ago, even while LOOKING completely different.
Both are deeply anticapitalism, for a redistribution of wealth to the average working person, and reworking the education system and media to adhere to a new orthodoxy. The Nazis saw the average working person as a White Aryan, while today’s Democratic Socialists see that person as a Black or Brown minority. Both the 1930s German Socialists and 2020s American Socialists think of the Jews in their midst as part of the problem, a slice of the global elite taking from the common man for their own selfish wants, despite any protestation otherwise.
The world witnessed the horrors of German socialists gaining power with their extremist vitriol and policies aimed to divide people. It watched as people went from heckling horrible views to applauding the audible bile, to voting the extremists into power to enact terrible policies masquerading as simple measures to empower the common man.
We are seeing history repeat and are dismissive of the tide, blind to the undertow which will sweep us from view and drown us before long.
Once again Israel is being forced to combat terrorists who have committed and plan to commit murderous attacks on civilians. Once more, the locus for the attacks is coming from United Nations’ “refugee” camps. Once again, the majority of the terrorists are Arabs whom the UN has told have rights to move into grandparents’ homes in Israel.
UNRWA Wards By The Numbers
For the year ending December 2021, according to UNRWA, there were 6,539,844 Palestinian wards who accept services from the agency, of which 5,807,653 (89%) were “refugees” and another 732,191 (11%) were other people whom the UN thought deserved particular support. Of the 6.5m, 863,708 (13.2%) are above age 60, suggesting perhaps only 2.6% of the total, or 175,000 are actual refugees from 1948 who lost homes a few miles away in Israel, after they launched a war to destroy the Jewish state.
The total number of UNRWA Refugees jumped by about 2.5% by year end 2022 to 6.7 million, while the number of actual refugees continues to decline. The total for West Bank wards was around 1.12 million (16.7%) and in Gaza it was 1.76 million (26.3%), which means that around 43% of all UNRWA wards already live in the area of 1948 Palestine, just a few miles from where ancestors had lived.
The majority of UNRWA wards live in Jordan, about 2.55 million (38% of the total wards), and have Jordanian citizenship. Jordan had been part of the original Palestine Mandate in 1922, and then attacked Israel in 1948 and illegally annexed the eastern portion of Israel which became known as the “West Bank” in 1950. After expelling all Jews from the region, Jordan granted all non-Jews in the area citizenship in 1954. Jordan abandoned its claim on the “West Bank” in 1988, and began pulling its citizenship from Arabs in the region.
The balance of UNRWA wards live in Lebanon (557,300) and Syria (674,500).
UNRWA offices in Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)
UNRWA Camps in the West Bank
Roughly 25% of UNRWA’s West Bank wards live in official UNRWA “camps”. There are 19 camps currently including:
The Jenin Camp was established in 1953 and houses about 23,000 people at the western end of Jenin in the northern West Bank. It encompasses about 0.42 km which yields a population density of roughly 33,333 per sq km. For comparison, Manhattan’s population density is about 28,000 per sq km.
UNRWA’s Jenin Terrorists
UNRWA’s camp in Jenin has long served as the launching point for terrorists as well as a safe haven for murderers.
2002 Massacre
On March 27, 2002, roughly 250 people sat down for a festive holiday seder meal for Passover in the Park Hotel in Netanya along the Mediterranean Sea. A 25-year old member of Hamas from the nearby West Bank city of Tulkarm walked into the hotel and blew himself up, killing 30 and injuring 140. Hamas praised the attack and said Israelis “have to expect those attacks from everywhere, from every Palestinian group.” The Palestinian Authority named a soccer tournament after the terrorist the next year.
In response to the attack, part of a wave of Palestinian terrorism that killed 135 Israeli civilians in that month, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield a few days later. From April 1-11, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) entered the Jenin Camp which was home base of many of the killers. Rather than bomb the area from the air which might have resulted in the injury of Arab civilians, the IDF deployed infantry into the narrow streets. Palestinian militants set boobytraps which killed and maimed over a dozens soldiers, so the IDF brought in armored bulldozers to clear them out. The militants surrendered on April 11 and the IDF cleared out of the area the following week, but not before losing 23 soldiers.
Center of Jenin Camp in April 2002, cleared of wanted militants, land mines and boobytraps
June and July, 2023 IDF Incursions for Jenin Camp Terrorists
The Jenin Camp has long been a stronghold of the political-terrorist group Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In September 2021, a new group called the Jenin Brigades was formed, soon accompanied by the Lion’s Den. The terrorists groups committed in excess of 50 attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers, many attacks staged under the umbrella of UNRWA.
On June 19, the IDF came to arrest two UNRWA ward terrorists. As the Jenin Brigades open fire on the IDF, the Israelis responded with live fire. Eight Palestinian gunmen were killed, most of them confirmed terrorists. UNRWA confirmed that the majority were wards under its care.
As the IDF left the camp, the terrorists detonated a roadside bomb under an Israeli armored vehicle, wounding eight soldiers. Israel deployed a gunship helicopter to help rescue the soldiers from the hornet’s nest.
After yet additional terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, Israel launched another incursion into the camp on July 3rd. The 48 hour operation once again focused on a small section of the UNRWA camp, where the IDF removed Palestinian terrorists, weapons and weapon-making factories.
UNRWA Ward Terrorists
The high percentage of UNRWA wards who are terrorists goes to the heart of the conflict: it is not about “occupation” or lack of sovereignty, as these people are in Palestine and under Palestinian rule. These terrorists have been told by the United Nations that they are entitled to move into homes where grandparents used to live inside of Israel. They are frustrated by the failure to get their “right of return” which the global body has promised.
Entrance to UNRWA refugee camp as a keyhole with a key on top, demonstrating that the pathway to homes inside Israel is via UNRWA.
The United Nations has incubated a destructive cult mentality which is leading to terrorism and death. It is well past time to shut UNRWA, and the first camps to be shuttered are those under Palestinian rule, the launching pads in Gaza and the West Bank.
The holy city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel held two parades over the past couple of weeks. One was done by the right-wing and the other by the left-wing. Each side claimed the moral high ground and accused the other of acting in bad faith.
Let’s speak about both honestly.
The Flag Parade
On May 18, thousands of Israelis marched through the streets of Jerusalem carrying Israeli flags to mark the reunification of the city at the end of the 1967 Six Day War. The tremendous pride in country and messianic feel of Jews controlling Judaism’s holiest site for the first time in almost two thousand years was palpable at the time, and many tried to recreate that sense of awe 56 years later.
Marchers near Damascus Gate of Old City during Jerusalem Day, 2023
The parade route into the Old City to the Western Wall could have worked its way through the Jewish Quarter but the nationalist spirit of the marchers directed them through the Arab Quarter, essentially re-educating the Arabs about their defeat. While the march was basically peaceful, roughly 2,500 police officers came to maintain order as past years saw scuffles as the Arabs in the Old City resented the march.
The Gay Pride Parade
On June 1, thousands of Israelis marched through the streets in a gay Pride Parade. While such a parade would have happened without controversy in the liberal and secular city of Tel Aviv, the religious beliefs of devout Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem caused friction.
Thousands of police came to protect the marchers as there were attacks in past years. This year’s event proved peaceful and uneventful.
Some Truths
The Flag and Pride Parades were both legal and unnecessarily provocative. The right wing Jewish nationalists did not need to go through the Arab Quarter and the left wing secular Jews did not need to march through religious sections of the country. Each sought to drive home their own point that they are free and able to hold such events, and enjoyed rubbing the spectators’ noses in the fact.
The left-wing media only focused on the right-wing in both cases. CNN described a “contentious flag march” in which a” number of Palestinian shopkeepers told CNN before the event that they would close their shops in the Old City for fear of attacks by far-right Jewish nationalists.” The New York Times covered the “Conflict With the Far Right Shrouds Jerusalem’s Pride Parade,” with the backdrop of “the most hard-line and religiously conservative government in the country’s history took power.”
Both the right-wing and left-wing held their parades in Jerusalem being proud and provocative, yet the mainstream opinion shapers could only find fault with right-wing and religious Jews. It fed their macro narrative of right-wing White Supremacist Jews as the elite amongst the bigots, despite being the most persecuted group in the world.
Before Israel declared itself an independent state in May 1948, “Palestinians” were a mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims. At the end of the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War, the region was divided and renamed. There were Israeli Jews, Christians and Muslims, but no longer any “Palestinians,” as the non-Israeli territory fell under Egypt (Gaza) and The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (the west bank of the Jordan River). The term “Palestinians” for the United Nations came to only mean Arab refugees from Israel, who were then living either in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and Israel (the term Palestinian refugees inside of Israel was phased out by the global body in 1952).
Jordanians and subsequently, Former Jordanians
After Transjordan illegally seized control of the west bank of the Jordan River in 1949, it renamed itself as “Jordan”, now controlling both banks of the river. Jordan annexed that west bank land in 1950 and subsequently gave all the people who lived there – as long as they weren’t Jewish – Jordanian citizenship in 1954. These new Jordanians moved freely between both sides of the Jordan River and many opted to NOT take on the label of “refugee.” To wit, in June 1950, there were 506,200 refugees in Jordan, and that number shrank to 465,741 in June 1951, an 8% drop.
The new Jordanians were part of the force that attacked Israel in June 1967 and lost the eastern part of Jerusalem and all of the land Jordan illegally annexed in 1950. Jordan ultimately withdrew Jordanian citizenship from these West Bank Arabs in July 1988, when the Palestinians declared their independence, in a move not recognized by much of the world.
The former Jordanians are ruled by the Palestinian Authority, under the unpopular leadership of Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. He has championed for more countries to recognize the Palestinian State and has secured the Muslim countries as well as several in Latin America. As the United States and western Europe have refused to recognize the country until it negotiates borders and other matters with Israel, they are viewed as stateless.
Meanwhile, Israel lifted the Jordanian ban on Jews living in the region. Israeli Jews now live throughout the area known as Area C, while they are still banned in Areas A and B under Palestinian Authority-control.
Hamas and Fatah have not been able to reconcile their differences over the past many years. Gaza remains an Islamic terrorist territory, and Areas A and B of the West Bank (handed by Israel to the Palestinian Authority) remain under control of the PA, for now. Should elections ever be held, it is likely that Hamas will win control of the PA and thereby take control of the former Jordanians in those areas.
One hundred years ago, “Palestinians” included a mix of Jews, Muslims and Christians living together. Today it means nothing. As Hamas controlled-Gaza and Fatah-controlled Areas A and B are completely distinct and there is no country of Palestine, the people should similarly be referred to differently, as Gazans and former Jordanians.
Kyrie Irving is a basketball star with nearly 18 million followers on Instagram and another 4.6 million on Twitter. His following gives him a very large following and influence about… what?
He’s just a basketball player. A gifted one for sure, but why should we care about anything else he says or does?
He’s just a basketball player.
So when Irving says the world is flat, why does society ask him to apologize? He’s an idiot. When he promotes antisemitic films, why can’t we put his opinions in the same basket as the rest of his inanity?
Consider Bella Hadid, a supermodel with 56.2 million Instagram followers. That’s more than the population of 210 of 235 countries and territories tracked by Worldometers. Should we care about her opinion about politics?
She’s just a model.
So when Hadid says stupid things like “Jesus was a Palestinian” or that Israel commits “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid”, why can’t we just ignore her?
Because we’re addicted. We listen to idiots.
There are a number of reasons we take the time to listen to non-experts:
The failure of the mainstream media – both in numbers and trust – left a void
Social media’s global platform and engagement vortex
Society’s elevation of emotion and “my truths” over facts
The thrill of interacting with megastars
Mainstream Media Failure
The internet killed mainstream media. As eyeballs moved online with the benefits of immediacy and active search, the advertisement dollars followed. People could search for up-to-the-second news and information from around the world from millions of sources, so the static print reports withered.
While hundreds of newspapers closed, the remaining ones pivoted with the times. They opted for deeper analyses in stories to leverage their brands and talented staff, leaving behind the quick breaking news which could be captured from millions of other sites. That left the short attention span-public to become ever more fixated on Instagram and limited characters-Twitter accounts of pop culture stars.
On top of abdicating the short-and-sweet sector, the news lost its objectivity. To keep its readership engaged, the media opted to choose a side and not report plain and deeper truths. In doing so, the media companies forever tarnished their reputations as biased actors. Their influence narrowed to segments of society.
Social Media Engagement
Pop culture transcends the biases of politics. Sports stars, models, musicians and actors become famous for their particular talents, not for their political acumen or scientific knowledge. They amass huge followings and have the ability through social media to speak directly to millions about the mundane, and sometimes, the not so trivial.
Alas, many of these stars are idiot savants, brilliant in a narrow field.
But their fans don’t care. They’re not interested in reading in depth boring analyses on weighty topics from old, dying and discredited media. They are fine with the quick blasts from venerated heroes. It helps them sort through the bazillion posts and articles online.
Bella Hadid has four times the number of followers as the 5,000-employee The New York Times. In a democratic and capitalist society, Hadid has much greater power and influence than mainstream media.
The influencers know the demographics of their followers, how to keep the eyeballs engaged, and how the platforms’ algorithms work. They have seen what trends and use social media managers to help consider how to best connect or grow certain demographics which helps feed the cash stream from endorsements.
And they know that boring doesn’t sell. Controversy pulls the eyeballs, and this is very much a business of eyeballs, not brains. Pics and blasts win attention, not careful consideration.
Kyrie Irving taking questions about his post of an anti-Semitic movie on October 30, 2022
When Kyrie spoke about his post featuring an anti-Semitic film, he said “All I do is post things for my people in my community and those that it’s actually going to impact. Anybody else that has criticism, it obviously wasn’t meant for them…. I’m not going to stand down on anything that I believe in. I’m only going to get stronger because I’m not alone. I have a whole army around me.” He seemingly believes that the core of his audience is Black people and hadn’t considered – or really cared about – local Brooklyn Jews who also buy his jersey.
Either way, his Black followers love him taking on the “establishment”, to the extent that anyone could consider the most persecuted people as privileged.
“My Truth” Malarkey
As broadcasting became democratized away from large conglomerates to individuals, the major platforms tried to catch up. They gave platforms to a range of talking heads on shows like ‘The View’ who share perspectives which might be embraced by swaths of the population, whether they are certain minority groups or say, high school dropouts. These new Hollywood stars offer a chance to share their ‘lived experiences’ and echo heretofore silent voices as it relates to various topics.
These voices reach those targeted audiences over mainstream media, and the rest of America hears it as well, much like Kyrie’s tweet designed for his Black “community” was also picked up by others.
The broader range of opinions have been dressed as “my truths.” That a noun like “truth” should have adjectives appended says much about today’s environment. We don’t have “objective truth” but opinions shielded from outside reality which ends discussion regardless of the preposterous ideas floated.
And polite society has asked the listeners to stay mum and contemplate what they are hearing. The once repressed voices now have a soapbox and it is a time to listen, not to respond. To correct “my truths” would be “mansplaining” or “touting one’s privilege”. It would surpass rude to admonish others’ “lived realities.”
As various segments of society get more representation in entertainment, government and board rooms, we have witnessed the promotion of bartenders, local teachers and high school dropouts to positions of influence and power. While there may be nothing wrong with that in principle, one needs to consider whether society is simply promoting locals who are eloquent but have no expertise.
Which is precisely the progressive idea. Experience has been marked as ensconcing privilege. America is seeking more diversity in views and opinions everywhere. And we’re getting them, and being directed to quietly listen.
Interacting With Megastars
The power of social media platforms is that it gives the masses the impression that they have a meaningful connection with stars rather than just a direct connection. The famous send messages right onto their personal phones! And they get to respond, with likes, comments and re-tweets. They can even become their “friend.”
In the e-world, a star who may not stop to sign an autograph for you, and might even hate everything you are, is carried all day in your pocket. An ever-present voice to keep you company along with the pantheon of other celebrities and influencers who keep you away from friends, family and work.
Technology has given megaphones to the entire planet, and the loudest ones have gone to pop cultural icons. Unfortunately, many have nothing worthwhile to say but the masses drink it in anyway. So the stars publish more to keep their audiences sated, and start to believe their “truths” because their fans shower them with adulation.
The rock band Moody Blues knew that they had catchy tunes but didn’t think they had the authority to opine on important matters as they sang “if you want the wind of change to blow about you, and you’re the only other person to know, don’t tell me. I’m just a singer in a rock and roll band.” Regrettably, they are in the minority, as the power of influencing millions of people is too addictive for most stars to ignore.
Idiot Audiences
You cannot blame these rich and powerful influencers for using their platforms. The problem is the audience. The followers are, for the most part, just like the pop cultural icon, minus the fame, success and narrow talent.
Reread the Kyrie Irving quote above. He was speaking to “my people in my community”, meaning principally Black men. His tweet on a global platform wasn’t intended for the millions of other people, the “anybody else… it obviously wasn’t meant for them.” He wanted Black men to know the problem of Jews stealing their heritage as the true “chosen people.” He wasn’t deliberately calling Jews lying and stealing scoundrels to their faces; that was a byproduct of the tweet.
While Kyrie’s featured movie may quote the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Adolf Hitler, and promote many anti-Semitic lies, it clearly spoke to him. He wanted his “people” and his “community” to take in the message that White Jews stole the Hebrew Bible from Black people (much like White Jews are stealing the Holy Land from Black and Brown people).
And yes, many Black men from Louis Farrakhan to Marc Lamont Hill to Keith Ellison believe and say as much. But Farrakhan’s been banned from social media, and Hill and Ellison only have 360,000 and 350,000 followers, respectively.
Kyrie reaches millions more and he wanted to spread this new anti-Semitic gospel.
Stepping Over The Line
Kanye West/ Ye has a few more followers than Kyrie Irving (18.4 million to 17.8 million). Ye’s tweet that he is going “death con 3 on Jewish people” was a call to violence. He didn’t simply insult, but committed an offense that should be punished in criminal court.
It was in that bilestorm that Kyrie added his tweet, another Black bomb on the Jews.
But Kyrie’s was a stink bomb. Offensive and gross but not jail-able.
The movie promotes a gross falsehood that many people actually believe. It has company amongst lots of racist media which is embraced by millions around the world. Kyrie fanned the flames with his enormous podium, he didn’t create the fiction. He’s ingested the poison just as the people in his community have.
The powers of the NBA sought to tamp down on today’s rampant anti-Semitism by suspending Kyrie for a few games and then made him apologize in a number of ways. It was painful for him to do so, as he insisted “I’m not going to stand down on anything that I believe in.” It took several weeks for him to say “I don’t have hate in my heart for the Jewish people or anyone that identifies as a Jew. The difficult aspect is just processing all this, understanding the power of my voice, the influence I have. I am no one’s idol, but I am a human being that wants to make (an) impact and change.”
The statement was a careful balancing act: not denouncing the movie or its message that he seemingly believes and wants millions of other Black people to watch, while also stating that he’s not an anti-Semite. He clarified that he didn’t hate Jews, hopefully ending his suspension and the saga.
There Is No End
It would be nice to say that this story of fanning hate is over and society can move on but that is not possible. Not because Kyrie / Ye / Hadid apologized / clarified / took their “punishment” or got off free.
It’s because societal dynamics dictate that it will definitely repeat.
The masses now have global unfiltered megaphones to speak to the masses at any time of day, and they all prefer short shots of emotion and “my truths” over considered meaningful analyses of objective truths.
Regrettably, it’s much easier to destroy than to build; to blurt an absurdity than investigate truth; to get all information from friends and members of your clan rather than scour dozens of source documents; to declare one’s opinions as truths rather than challenge old assumptions; to demand that others are to blame and should change rather than improve oneself; and to join the masses rather than stand apart.
The fictional idiot savant Forest Gump was fond of saying “stupid is as stupid does,” and he has become our champion. We do not consider his words as a warning but have embraced them as our national motto.
America has replaced “In God We Trust” with “In Influencers We Trust.”
Make no mistake, the idiots are winning and are likely to continue to do so.
What’s Bigger News, The Killing of 80 Civilians Or 5 Terrorists? Wrong Question.
The media is obsessed with Israel. Don’t believe me? Look at The New York Times newspaper published on October 26, 2022.
Leading off the International section on page A4, was an article written by three reporters – Isabel Kershner, Gabby Sobelman and Hiba Yazbek. It was one of only two articles on the page, and featured a medium-sized picture of Palestinians at the funeral of “militants” killed by Israel.
The article spoke about Israel’s military raid on the most active Palestinian terrorists who have been shooting Israelis and planting bombs. The army successfully eliminated five of the group’s members, including its leader.
In another part of the world, 80 civilians in Myanmar were killed when several military jets deliberately bombed an outdoor music concert. That story was on the last page of the International section, page A10. It was one of three stories on the page and was written by a single journalist. It contained no pictures and competed for readers attention against two large color photos on the page, including one with cute penguins.
The population of Myanmar is 54.8 million, 5.8 times the size of Israel’s 9.4 million people. The 80 Myanmar civilians killed is 16 times as large as five Arab terrorists. Despite this, three journalists were deployed on the “smaller” story which dwarves the minimum number required to write about the large massacre at an outdoor concert.
Why does a larger story by every measure get less emphasis and coverage?
It’s not just the media. The United Nations has special agencies just to deal with Israel. Its Human Rights Council has a standing item every session for one country- Israel – to “produce a database” of Jewish businesses. It has censured Israel more than the rest of the world combined.
Reporting. Investigating. Censuring.
Watching the Jews.
Society may have acknowledged that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic forgery, but has none-the-less internalized its lie that Jews are conspiring to control the world. The smear emanates constantly from the mouths of antisemites like Marc Lamont Hill’s “from Ferguson to Palestine” and Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s “from Gaza to Detroit“.
As such, the media deploys teams of journalists and spills much ink on the Jewish State just as the UN overspends time and money, as each believes that Israel will ultimately impact everyone much more than billions of people around the world. Martin Niemoller’s famous saying may have warned about “Then they came for the Jews…” portraying them as persecuted victims, but in fact, the antisemitic conspiracy theorists focus on Jews as the globalists, perpetrating vile crimes wherever they are found.
Israel is not simply held to a double standard; it is constantly under a microscope by antisemitic voyeurs who are waiting to “Catch the Jew” to validate their noxious Jew hatred.
… for visiting countries on vacation that fund anti-Israel NGOs and condemn Israel at the United Nations;
… for not listening to kids’ recommendation to invest alongside Pelosi, and for listening to them about investing in crypto;
… for calling my uncle a crazy racist and my niece a lazy woke-tard;
… for still not having a proper name for my in-laws, after many years of being married;
… for not calling my parents enough, even when they remind me of that fact constantly;
… for pretending I’m preoccupied when my spouse asks for something I’m not interested in;
… for telling my spouse to change attire; for not listening to spouse’s recommendation on attire; for listening to spouse’s recommendation on dress; for being late to events because of attire;
for these sins and thoughts related to family, please pardon us
… for the arrogance of believing that people read my postings including annoying Wordle scores;
… for believing Shabbos calories don’t count;
… for thinking I’m younger than my age, and not living each day fully;
… for internalizing that living my best life means selfish overindulgence;
… for trying to do too much; for trying to do too little;
… for not spending more time with family, friends, community and You;
First One Through 