Recently I have seen multiple “journalists” getting their exercise by jumping to bizarre conclusions. For example, anyone who is critical of the actions of the Israeli government is an anti-Semite. WTF? What does criticism of the government have to do with “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people”? If you are a MAGA Republican does criticism of the current Democrat governing bodies equate to criticism of the American people? Would anyone think that?
I saw Columbia University students protesting the Genocide in Gaza (their words, not mine) equated to “Friends of Hamas.” Really? Not wanting to see innocent civilians suffer and die makes them Hamas supporters? On what planet?
Why have we gone all tribal in this issue? It seems that the guiding principle is “you are either for me or against me” and there is no middle ground, no nuance, nothing other than that. (Thanks Republicans for promoting tribalism so hard for the past two decades.)
News organs are flinging incorrect labels around willy-nilly indicating they have agendas they are not supposed to have. Even declaring the legitimate government of Gaza to be a “Terrorist Organization” is suspect. Hamas was labeled a terrorist organization, in the past, but so were Zionist groups. A government might employ guerilla tactics, but that doesn’t make them terrorists. I guess journalists do. But by any such definition a government performing terrorist bombings of civilian populations, either though suicide vests or dropped by fighter-bombers would make the Israeli government a terrorist organization.
In Canada, section 83.01 of the Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed “in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause” with the intention of intimidating the public “…with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act.” Activities recognized as criminal within this context include death and bodily harm with the use of violence; endangering a person’s life; risks posed to the health and safety of the public; significant property damage; and interference or disruption of essential services, facilities or systems.
Sound familiar?
If Hamas is a terrorist organization, the current Israeli government (which I do not equate to the Israeli people) is one too.
Uncommon Sense 
Spot on!
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Comment by lenny unencumbered — May 4, 2024 @ 11:22 am |
News organizations stopped being actual news reporting organizations long ago. What we get now is an odd mix of a few news items interspersed with pure opinion and editorial content. Couple that with the fact that virtually all news organizations these days have to be profit generating if they are going to continue to exist. That means they need to attract viewers and, more importantly these days, eyeballs riveted to websites. In addition to that, with increasingly totalitarian governments that will shut down news sources they don’t like, and we end up with the mess we have today.
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Comment by grouchyfarmer — May 4, 2024 @ 3:22 pm |
If Hamas is a terrorist organization? If? Article seven of the Hamas charter dedicates the group to killing Jews. There’s no ‘if’ about this genocidal intention. What the fuck’s wrong with people who refuse to recognize this stated intention?
Look, if Israel wanted to commit genocide against Gazans, they could. But their war is with Hamas. Where is the call for Hamas to relinquish power from all these so-called ‘allies’ of Palestinians? Where are the these signs in the various occupations and marches and demonstrations? Where is the call for Hamas to stop using human shields for their terrorist infrastructure? Strangely absent. I wonder why.
If Gazans under Hamas rule had the capability to commit genocide against the Jews, they would. They say so! Right there is the difference that relegates your final claim to be an absurd equivalency… but an absurd equivalency that sells well to the… ill-informed. And it’s kind to call such folk ‘ill-informed’ because in reality it is deeply anti-Semitic. It’s a double standard of breath-taking scope. We have a name for ‘ill-informed’ people going along with the massive double standard on display and accepting without criticism such blatant twisting of what’s true. And in reality, this failure to present what’s true is just another in a growing line of examples of distorted thinking, in this case a massive distortion necessary to produce Jew hatred. And look at how many people just go along with it? THAT is what’s so depressingly true these days.
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Comment by tildeb — May 5, 2024 @ 7:35 am |
Re “If Hamas is a terrorist organization? If? Article seven of the Hamas charter dedicates the group to killing Jews. There’s no ‘if’ about this genocidal intention. What the fuck’s wrong with people who refuse to recognize this stated intention?” Intentions do not make a group into a terrorist group. At one point, everyone of Israel’s neighbors was dedicated to the complete and utter destruction of Israel. Did that make Egypt a terrorist group? Saudi Arabia? Syria? I favor the “if it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.” definition of terrorism. Terrorists are people who use terrorist tactics/strategies. Just targeting civilians is not a factor any more. Since WW2 when the Nazi’s decided that bombing civilians was a good idea (previously outlawed by the rules of war, which superseded previous “no holds barred” rules followed throughout all of history). As soon as the Nazis started it, the Allies copied that and we have been bombing the shit out of civilians ever since.
Many Muslims carry signs “Death to America,” does that make them terrorists? I don’t think so as they have only commuted a thought crime at that point. Once they start strapping in bomb vests and using them, then they become terrorists.
If you look carefully at what the Israeli government supports, you will find them up to their hips in terrorist behaviors. Look at the “settlers” they bring into neighborhoods already occupied in the West Bank. Look at what happens to those who don’t sell their houses to wannabe settlers? Look at the walls being built in the West Bank, a supposed independent territory. Look at Israel stopping and searching all ships trying to dock in Gaza.
None of this has anything to do with Jews being Jews. It has to do with conservative governments in Israel, which seem to have so many things in common with conservatives here in the U.S.
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Comment by Steve Ruis — May 5, 2024 @ 12:00 pm |
Hey nice bit of bait and switch, there Steve. I raised the Hamas Charter because it states its goals. It explains the actions it undertakes. It explains why the people of Gaza are just meat sacks used repeatedly to protect the organization for any and all hostile reactions to it, and the justification is right there. It’s not some generic hostile ‘intention’ as you try to portray it in order to make a false equivalency to cover up Hamas’ dedication to terror. You then try some whataboutery to divert readers from this fact (and no doubt you will succeed) in order to maintain belief in the false equivalency. That’s what you’re selling: belief. A Just So story. Where have we encountered these religious apologetic tactics before, I wonder? Hmmm.
Put another way, you are trying to pretend that intentionally pushing an old woman in a wheelchair into the path of an oncoming bus is really the same as pushing her out of the way because, hey, it’s pushing some old disabled woman around and so it’s ALL bad.
No, Steve; intention makes all the difference in the world.
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Comment by tildeb — May 5, 2024 @ 12:43 pm |
There is a colossal difference between being Anti-Semitic (of all Jews) and Anti-Israel or Anti-Netanyahu. Not too long ago I was falsely accused of being Anti-Semitic because of my opposition to the state of Israel beginning in 1947 with their invasion of and now 77-year illegal occupation of Palestine. That does not make me anti-Semitic. Period.
Anyone who equates opposition to Israel with being a Jew-hater has lost their marbles. 🤦♂️🙄
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Comment by Professor Taboo — May 5, 2024 @ 9:16 am |
True, but that doesn’t eliminate it as a propaganda tool. For example, the evangelicals who call Jews “Christ-killers” seem to forget that the claim Jesus went into Jerusalem to be crucified and resurrected. If Jesus isn’t killed and resurrected, then Paul’s Christianity cannot exist. It was all part of God’s plan, no? So, how can they vilify Jews for obeying God’s plan? It is idiotic, but is still used as propaganda nonetheless.
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Comment by Steve Ruis — May 5, 2024 @ 9:37 am |
Idiotic indeed. It is glaringly obvious that far too many Americans cannot distinguish between fact and propaganda, or fiction and truth, myth and verified history. It is beyond mind-boggling. 🤦♂️
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Comment by Professor Taboo — May 5, 2024 @ 12:44 pm |
Feynman tried to warn us about being fooled, and that we were the easiest people to fool. On the one hand we have the Hamas Charter, which is a straight up and crystal clear set of goals based on religiously inspired hatred of Jews. Hamas is an outgrowth of a combination of the Muslim Brotherhood and Naziism. But, of course, why should anyone listen to and pay attention to the son of one of Hamas’ founding fathers (Mosab Hassan Yousef)? Better to pretend what’s true isn’t. Better to pretend Hamas is anti-Zionist!!!! Seriously… that’s the level of foolishness so called ‘academics’ have now reached. Remarkable.
We have reached the point where people who think well of themselves actually try to justify Hamas as somehow legitimate, that in the case of Palestinians it’s somehow okay to reject liberal democracy, that’s it’s unfortunate but necessary to use of terror as a political weapon, that it’s of no real concern to support its social conservatism that demands the subordination of women, that it is all a passing fad to murder any and all opponents, that it’s somewhat understandable that Hamas demonstrates a lethal hostility to homosexuality. As long as it’s anti-Zionist, no illiberalism really matters, you see. It’s all about Big Bad Israel! Don’t look behind the curtain and see that there is shared solidarity between these ‘well-meaning folk’ and their shared hatred with Hamas of a common enemy, a Jewish state. Don’t notice that being ‘anti-Zionist’ really means superseding all political differences between Hamas Jew haters and their allies of lazy so-called ‘liberals’ in the west who without any shame whatsoever honestly present an incredibly warped reality to the point of pretending this issue is about criticizing Israeli governments and politicians. It’s not. It’s apologizing for and rationalizing the worst kind of totalitarian religious impulses and Jew-hating extremism. But that cannot possibly be considered anti-Semitic! It cannot possibly have anything to do with destroying the world’s only Jewish state, the Middle East’s only liberal democracy. No, it’s only “Zionism” that they oppose, and so don’t see the blatant double standard. It’s the existence of Israel to exist that is the real problem for true anti-Semites, so today’s progressive language – human rights, revolutionary anti-colonialism, anti-racism – really helps cover up the internal inconsistency needed to maintain both the patina of liberalism and the double standard needed to condemn all things Israeli… including justifying a dedicated terrorist religious state determined to commit a Jewish genocide.
Never Again has lost its purchasing power against such illiberals. That’s the insidious nature of being a western anti-Semite: one does not see its plain expression even when one does it.
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Comment by tildeb — May 5, 2024 @ 12:29 pm |
You make it sound as if the hatred of other cultures and religions is far from the norm. Consider Islam. They have only one response to apostates: kill them! Try setting up on a corner in Iran expounding against Mohammed or Islam and see what they really feel about freedom of expression.
I don’t care that Hamas has a hatred of Jews, people hate all kinds of things. I rather wish they didn’t but I am not them. Virtually all of the actions taken by Palestinians can be considered as reactions to things being done to them. From the River to the Sea is opposed by The Right of Return. The whole Israel Project was a poor thing from the get-go. We would have been better off offering them a large part of Wyoming or North Dakota. At least we had the right to the land. Just like Yahweh’s gift the Hebrews, the gift of Israel to the Jews involved them becoming conquerors and all the problems that creates.
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Comment by Steve Ruis — May 6, 2024 @ 9:23 am |
It’s not a coincidence that there are peace and trade treaties in place between Israel and a half dozen Muslim dominated regional powers (all Sunni). Nor is it a coincidence that there are no similar treaties with Muslim dominated regional powers backed by Iran (Shia). And it’s easy to forget that Hamas attacked Israel with a mass murder intention to stall the most recent peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia. For all those squeaking about peace with Hamas, peace with the PA, peace with Hezbollah, peace with Islamic Jihad, peace with the Muslim Brotherhood, peace with the Houthis, that’s all these squeaks will ever be because the reason for these groups to exist and gain financial backing is to wage an eternal war to kill Jews. That’s why it’s important for people fooling themselves about obtaining peace to think for even one second that the Hamas Charter doesn’t mean what it says. It’s right there to correct this kind of foolishness.
And it’s as much a pipe dream to think Israel should cede its autonomy to those dedicated to its eradication – for whatever historical distortions one may wish to believe – as it would be for the Americans to cede its autonomy to the Apache and Comanche tribes. No nation will commit itself to its own eradication.
So if peace is the objective, Hamas has to go. It cannot do otherwise, whereas other Muslim states can and do. Hamas’ capability to wage eternal war against the Jews has to be dismantled and that cannot be done through talking. Ever. That is a fantasy world with which the ‘anti-Zionists’ think is possible. It’s not. Granting any of these dedicated terrorist groups a nation state as if that offers in any way, shape, or fashion, some motivation to put aside their reason for being and embrace peace with Jews rather than remaining dedicated to the eradication of Israel is about the most anti-peace policy that even the most dull of the most stupid of the most ignorant fantasy believer could possibly support. Acting on this belief as if working towards peace is a guaranteed path to establishing never-ending conflict where civilians will always be killed – in Israel because they represent Jews and in the surrounding area because they are used as expendable shields and fodder. This role of civilian victims has ever been the modus operandi of terrorists. That’s how wee know these groups ARE terrorists and helps explain why any and all peace offerings by Israel are always rejected. Peace is not the goal of terrorists – whether elected or not – and not killing Jews can never be the objective of such groups dedicated to doing just this. In their very Charters!!!!! Can Westerners not read for comprehension any more????
If anyone wants peace in the region as so many think they do by supporting Hamas’ Oct 7th mass murder attack as if equivalent to Israel’s actions (talk about the scope of delusion necessary for this reality-denying belief to motivate so-called ‘protestors’… shh, no anti-Semitism going on here) then there is no worse way of achieving it than by advocating to disallow Israel from dismantling these neighbouring dedicated terrorist infrastructure. That includes Gaza. If anyone truly cares about Gazans, stop feeding the mass delusion that they either perpetual refugees (they’re not…. the Arabs that stayed rather than flee ARAB invading armies now live, work, serve, hold public offices in both the judiciary and executive branches, own property, pay taxes, and are full Israeli citizens… the ones that fled ended up in Gaza and various refugee eternal camps in some surrounding countries) or justified in trying to destroy Israel. There is no Right of Return. No lasting peace exists anywhere in that delusion; just eternal calls for the latest ‘cease fire’ every time Israel responds militarily to the latest mass murder exercise. Such ‘cease fires’ benefits ONLY these terrorist organizations to rearm, refuel, recruit, refinance and get back to their stated goal of killing Jews USING Palestinians as fodder. Calling for a cease fire is equivalent to calling for perpetual conflict. Not smart.
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Comment by tildeb — May 6, 2024 @ 11:26 am |
“Virtually all of the actions taken by Palestinians can be considered as reactions to things being done to them.” But this is just you expressing your ‘anti-Zionism’, right?
Definition of anti-Semitism:
Let’s see who has lost their marbles here and can connect the dots to correctly differentiate between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. After all, we’re told that anyone who equates opposition to Israel with being a Jew-hater has lost their marbles.
It must be anti-Zionism that accounts for why the cases of anti-Semitism is up in France from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 last year, with 75% after October 7th. In the United States, the tally more than doubled, from 3,697 incidents in 2022 to 7,523 last year, with 52% of the 2023 total occurring after October 7. In Canada, the increase was from 65 to 132; in the United Kingdom from 1,662 to 4,103; in Germany from 2,639 to 3,614, and in Italy from 241 to 454. Yup, all of a sudden, ‘complaining about the state of Israel’ must have been the main driver, without considering the 17,000 Palestinians working in Israel on Oct 6th, or the 14000 medical appointments given freely to Palestinians from Gaza including restoring the sight of a Hamas leader. What a terrible state. It musty be a genocidal Israeli government that explains why so many people suddenly feel needs some serious criticism here, right now, far in excess of the demanding task and the moral fibre needed to criticize Hamas. We wouldn’t want to disturb the ‘Free Palestine’ crowd to demand a release of hostages Hamas took, nor dare to condemn it in demonstrations and with banners and megaphones for its daily war crimes to stop trying to kill Jews. No, that’s beyond the pale. No one with any sense of fairness would want to protest for Hamas to surrender the war it started in the most brutal way imaginable, nor expect them to give up their terrorist ways to avoid causing the suffering of Gazans standing between Israel and its infrastructure. It must always be Israel’s fault, in all ways. And there’s the reasoning up there: “virtually ALL of the actions taken by (ready for the nice little switcharoo?) ‘Palestinians’ can be considered as reactions to things being done to them (yeah, you know, those Israeli raids raping and butchering Gazans, taking and raping hostages, mass murdering young people out dancing, firing rockets constantly into the Strip just to kill people, you know, stuff “being done to them,” kind of ‘things’). It’s just not cricket to have a negative view of terrorist leaders of Hamas living luxuriously in Qatar. That’s aid money well spent… the aid money not spent on terrorist infrastructure or pay-to-slay programs killing Jews. No, those kinds of considerations are too much to ask. We must get back to being ‘anti-Zionist’ that couldn’t possibly be motivated by anti-Semitism. Perish the thought. It’s all about supporting Palestinians.
Yeah, right. Of course there’s no double standard being applied to create all the false equivalencies needed to pretend anti-Semitism plays no role in anti-Zionism in addressing this conflict.
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Comment by tildeb — May 6, 2024 @ 4:02 pm |
Easy, Peasy solution to this “conflict”?
Return the hostages and Netanyahu will call off the dogs and all will be peace and quiet.
Right? Right?
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Comment by Nan — May 5, 2024 @ 5:39 pm |
Probably too late to have anyone read this but it’s to the point about the direct link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. This is a letter sent out to the students of Columbia by Jewish students and well worth reading to explain why and what it means.
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Comment by tildeb — May 9, 2024 @ 3:36 pm |
For anyone who might want to get past or through or beyond all the narratives being expressed these days about the Israeli war with Hamas, this interview with John Spencer will help grasp what’s going on, how it’s going, and why it matters. He knows what he’s talking about (Non Coms who go from private to Sergeant First class always do, but notice that Spencer then also rose through the officers ranks to his appointment at West Point.) This guy is a soldier’s soldier.
John Spencer is: “…an award-winning scholar, professor, author, and combat veteran. He currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast. He is also a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare. John served 25 years in the U.S. Army, having held ranks from Private to Sergeant First Class and Second Lieutenant to Major. He was an active duty Army officer during two combat tours in Iraq.”
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Comment by tildeb — May 11, 2024 @ 4:38 pm |