423 Comments

Why are a few nattering nabobs of nitwittery on the far Left a indictment of liberalism in general? That's like saying Pat Robertson or (to update the analogy) maybe Andrew Tate or Marjorie Taylor Green is an indictment of conservatism across the board. Apparently they have broad tar brush sales in Hungary too. Meanwhile I have yet to see anyone remotely mainstream defend Hamas. The city of Baltimore-- not exactly a bastion of the GOP, just passed a (yes, feel-good) resolution saying "We stand with Israel". That sort of thing been vastly more common this week.

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As is often the case, the most reasonable takes lie somewhere between Rod’s overheated catastrophism and Jon’s chilly nothing-to-see-here-ism.

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Rod cites loons in academia all the time. But nutpicking in academia is easier than in a Planters warehouse. Left-leaning commentators do the same thing trawling through the ravings in rightwing Christian bodies where crazy thing are said no less. I really am in the middle on this, and, yes, I decry loony-tunery of every and any sort, be it pompous profs praising terrorists or dim-bulb types speculating about locking up gays, liberals, and anyone else they dislike.

Just say No to nuts-- and then move on to more serious things.

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"I really am in the middle on this...."

May I suggest that you - in an effort to be succinct - simply say that you are... lukewarm.

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"Nothing in Excess". It really is that simple. And for that reason I have my own complaints with modern day America, since excess is valued almost everywhere across many many tribes.

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“Nothing in Excess.”

Is it this nostrum which has led you to refer to the murder of over 1000 people as a “dust-up” and a “fracas”? I fear you are either disingenuous or morally obtuse, although a third option occurs to me as I write this.

In any case, I shall decline to take your nostrum as my own, when I consider where it has brought you.

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If your native language is not English I readily forgive your inability to place my words in their full context. Otherwise please work on your reading comprehension, and also learn a little Middle Eastern history.

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Your last sentence is particularly appropriate to any comment of yours.

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Yes. it's good advice. As is my signature nostrum: Live not by fear.

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I like that very much.

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From academia, the nuttiness, especially when aided and abetted by the faculty and unchallenged by the admin, it flows into society. Nothing good comes after that, except maybe eventually the contaminated universties being razed to the ground and something new coming in its stead.

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Where's the evidence of it flowing into society? Apart from the obvious stuff that comes out of science and become technology?

Out here in Reality most people get an earful of the cant and babble of the academy and shake their heads saying "What a bunch of simpering twits!"

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"Where is the evidence of it flowing into society?" You mean, beyond the products of big entertainment corporations, policies from governement agencies, rogue elements of them doing the same? Prosecutors not doing their jobs, etc etc?

Mass riots lasting for months, with politicos and media types cheering it on and paying the bail of many a crininal?

When the SecDef of the new Administration orders a Department-wide "stand-down for white supremacy?" When the Joint Chief of Staff goes on about "white rage?" Leaders of a Pentagon that currently looks to be a whole bunch of stumblebums who can't handle their primary mission of warfighting and prepping men and women to do the same, so riddled and cowed by activists who despise the flag they salute and the Constitution they swear to?

Why, there is none, John. You are so right.

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Top on the conservative agenda at the state level should be the political equality of the professoriate at the state universities. If a state university has forty political science professors, twenty must be right-of-center or funding will be cut off. If the university has fifty history professors, twenty-five must be right-of-center or funding is cut off.

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Complete agreement. Sure, they will then screech "ACADEMIC FREEDOM!", which you point out the fate of faculty, staff and students who are openly c onservative, or even worse (shudder) CHRISTIAN (GASP). So much for diversity, eh?

I would absolutely do this. Do it or your funding goes away.

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Too many Republican governors and legislators spend all their time on tax cuts and cozying up to big business at the expense of helping mold the colleges. Most states have several state schools run partly on state funds. Conservatives should weaponize that.

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I'm not sure I can agree with quota hiring in any context, dthough I do agree more diversity of opinion is needed.

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Between Academia and Hollywood, almost all degeneracy and moral rot comes from them. Putin would be doing us a favor lobbing a small nuke onto Cambridge and New Haven and Hollywood. Just kidding, kind of.

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The problem is that there aren’t just a few loons in academia. There are an awful lot of them. And what happens in academia doesn’t stay in academia. The amorphous consumerist hedonism of the later 1950s was weaponized by the intellectually self-conscious New Left of the early 1960s to launch concerted attacks on one after another traditional nongovernmental institution in American life. By the 1970s, those institutions were in bad shape—the family, organized religion, etc. were all on the ropes and have now been deformed out of all recognition. This happened not because of some impersonal, natural, organic process of cultural evolution, but of deliberate destruction on the part of culturally vigorous parties emerging from academia in the 1960s and early 1970s. It was the students who were reading Marcuse and his epigones who went into the education schools and sociology departments who ended up populating the burgeoning social service bureaucracies of the later 1970s and onward. These are people whose very livelihoods depend on the weakness of traditional institutions and Christian moral culture. No doubt you, like most, view the causation in reverse—that the weakness of tradition led to social service bureaucrats taking over, but that makes little sense if you think about it. No one was crying out for this or that bureaucracy like a thirsty man in the desert crying for water. No, supply creates its demand in a fundamental way and did here, too. I know that basic concept is anathema on the Left—the primacy of supply, but there is no argument against it other than blind assertion.

PS: the Trimmers were in hell too. Beware.

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Relative to the population as a whole (330 million more or less) dumbass academics are a rounding error.

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Relative to the number of explosive devices in existence in August 1945, atomic bombs were rounding errors too.

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The death toll at Hiroshima was not. Officially 90,000 deaths were counted, but there were tens of thousands more missing, probably because there was quite literally nothing left to find of them.

The Nagasaki bomb missed its target by some distance, and the death toll was less, but still in the high five digits.

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The number of impressionable college kids imbibing leftish ideas and behavioral justifications flooding out of the colleges and universities between 1965 and 1980 certainly did have a huge cultural impact on public schools and such professions as mental health, social work and the like.

We aren’t talking about the esoterica of deconstruction here, but education majors exposed to Paolo Friere.

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I went ti the University of Michigan, a school noted for student activism. But I just had to look up Paolo Friere as I had never heard of him.

Unless one deliberately goes looking for crazypants leftwingery in a "grievance studies" department it's very easy to go through college without being much affected by any of that crap, other than to be turned off by it when some protest group gets up to annoying antics. I would say that the "mainstream" stuff they teach business majors has done vastly more harm to the nation.

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Jon, something tells me you don't have much experience of universities. I've worked for four, three of them allegedly 'world-leading' institutions. This devilry is not marginal. It's a metastasised cancer.

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Universities are hot-houses. Most of us go there (if at all- many do not) for a very few years, we look back fondly on some fun times, and then get on with our lives. As we should. I'm A-OK with criticizing a'holery, even vehemently and vitriolically, in academia, but there's a reason we have the metaphor of an ivory tower to describe college. We shouldn't see outcroppings of assinity in such a place as any sort of general sign of civilizational rot, any more than crazypants stuff coming out of certain churches is the harbinger of theocratic fascism decsending.

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"We shouldn't see outcroppings of assinity in such a place as any sort of general sign of civilizational rot..."

This is just blatant whistling past the graveyard, turning your eyes from reality in order to maintain your pose as "serious" and "reasonable".

How else should we see the obvious fact that our cultural and academic institutions (esp the most prestigious) have all surrendered to "Critical Studies", which now that the mask has slipped, is obviously a program of anti-European hatred dedicated to demonizing our culture and history, dismantling our societies and excusing any barbarity from anyone considered a member of a Protected Victim class?

Does none of this really exist until Hamas parachutes into your window? Are you still at this late date claiming that the academic turn against free speech and free thought is a right-wing canard and these kids will grow out of it?

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Would you then say that if one person anywhere in the US utters an outrageously wrong, blatantly false, flamingly outrageous comment about anything we are all doomed?

Come on, there's no shortage of foulness coming from the Right these days too, including from people in elected office, or in the running therefor.

The human race is a parade of fools, knaves and idiots-- but you can't freak out every time some such cretin rears his head and shoots off his mouth.

Is courage even valued anywhere these days?

I don't get the Cult of Fear. I really don't.

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"Would you say that..."

When it becomes echoed in media, government (legistlators, admin and bureacrats), culture makers like Hollywood, and so ingrained, to the point that even those in the hard sciences TRY to pander to it, even though all the math in the world denies them, and our armed guardians, police and armed forces do the same..to the point where to oppose it can get you fired from your job and a visit by armed agents of the state...yeah, it has become something to be concerned about.

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"one person anywhere in the US..."

ONE PERSON!?? ONE PERSON!!??

Freak out?? Courage?! Fear!??

You really do seem to live on your own planet.

Do you subscribe to Rod and then not read his posts but just comment?

We are living through the complete ideological capture of the entire Anglosphere by the ideology that calls itself "Social Justice"—and if you want to deny that, I encourage you to pick any institution in the West from the US Army to CBC to BBC to every single college and museum and see the identical language about "Diversity" "marginalized voices" "historical oppression" etc (which are all euphemisms for racialism and assigning people moral scores based on skin color)—which includes ideological litmus tests for hiring and the hounding of dissidents that's already far surpassed anything experienced during the Red Scare.

If you cannot see and admit to any of this, you're either dishonest or stupid, which makes engaging with you pointless either way.

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And yet I am not descrying any utopias, only pointing out that the fearful preoccupation with the passing ephemera of the Here and Now, blinds you to much graver dangers.

Again, I am not being an optimist.

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no big deal, it's just that the seed of Critical Theory has left the university and germinated into the flower of a new religion that has captured the minds and deeds of our ruling elite.

it's not 2017 anymore. I used to be skeptical of professors like Peterson and Weinstein when they were warning about the new religion jumping the tracks into the mainstream. I always knew it was dangerous, I just didn't think the jump would happen, until 2020...

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as Rod has said many times, our situation is similar to what Russia faced with its late-19th-century Nihilists...a generation where the best educated become committed to destruction in the name of "Justice" and a liberal class too impotent to disagree or offer any serious pushback.

this is just the beginning of a very ugly time that looms up ahead...

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According to Gallup https://news.gallup.com/poll/350393/key-trends-views-israel-palestinians.aspx

38% of Democrats support the Palestinian Authority (backers of the PLO).

Democrats are equally likely to say they support either Palestine or Israel.

Those identifying as "liberal Democrat" have a 15 percent differential in support for Palestine vs. Support for Israel (example: 40 vs 55 with 10 percent undecided - the article is not specific on the percents).

I think everyone who accuses the right of being anti-Semitic should see the tremendous support for Israel in these polls.

*****Rod Dreher is right to point out the problem with the far left and its support for Palestine.*****

Is Rod saying they all want to chop babies heads off? No. But he is saying it is a problem, not just a "few academics".

I've replied to you, James, though I know you agree with me, in order to keep my thoughts within this sub-thread.

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Surely one have some sympathy for the Palestininians. And US foreign policy should be something that is Made in America, not on Jerusalem (nor in Riyadh)

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Word. Try living in Berkeley.

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Reforming the universities should be first on the conservative agenda on the state level. Tax cuts aren't enough.

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Good luck negotiating with satan.

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Good luck and intervention from God would be needed.

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Derek , they are hubs of Satanic garbage!

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Jon, you will be tied to a stake with the evildoers lighting a fire at your feet, and you'll be denying there's a problem.

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And Rod, my friend, you have predicted five of the last zero ends of the world as we know it.

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Rod, you are beloved, as is Jon, but I don’t think Jon is saying he wants Hamas to start an insurgency here while he turns a blind eye to their violence.

It is Israel’s choice to deal with this as they will, but as Christians, we cannot cheerlead war. Yes the Israelis must defend themselves and protect innocent lives, but it is their war, not ours. Like you, I agree we should not be committing cultural or literal suicide here by allowing massive, unvetted immigration of potentially dangerous people; that is our responsibility and we should not turn into an occidental version of what is going on in western Europe. That said, over there IS over there, geographically and culturally. It should stay there. Founding fathers, founding fathers, founding fathers. Peace.

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I have zero affection for terrorism, and elsewhere I have affirmed that Israel must crush Hamas- but that should not turn into a general bloodbath of the population.

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Jon...Brother...listen to these words.

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I suspect it would be more the case of us tied to stakes with evildoers lighting fires at our feet and Jon in the crowd assuring us that it’s not a problem.

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No true Scotsman…

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The American Left and the American Right are both large coalitions of different factions, each with their own causes. Can you deny it? There's no such thing as a typical Leftwinger or a typical Rghtwinger.

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Some of us here, certainly me, certainly Rod, and certainly many others believe we have seen civilizational decline to the extent that we believe civilization as we have known it will fall.

Obviously, you have not seen this.

What do you need to see?

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If you have read my comments here you should know I see catastrophe off a ways in the future, and of a magnitude that could easily blow away our Constitution, indeed our nation itself, and leave strife, anarchy and perhaps eventually tyranny as people become desperate enough to trade freedom away. But not yet, not today.

Oh, and the bad news is that any attempt to prevent it will simply trigger it, as in good old Greek tragedy.

I am not Polyanna. I am Cassandra-- and like her my prognostication is scoffed at or simply ignored.

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OK, but catastrophe is off a ways but what causes it?

What do you need to see?

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One word: Money.

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Once again, money is just a tool, whose use is determined by the character of those wielding it.

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Of course you are right about that. I should instead say avarice--and I will add hubris (the sin of Satan)-- will make our ruin.

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Good Jesus, Jon.

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The Squad in Congress had trouble with messaging on this stuff. Members of Congress are pretty much mainstream by definition.

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Ok. Point taken. The problem is that the lefties so highly populate higher Ed. And the powers that be in higher Ed don’t seem to care, but reward such folks.

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But what do we DO, Rod! Does anyone have an action list of how to actually fight this? Short of "write your Congressman"? I'm not being flippant. I NEVER do protests, but I would over this issue. I just don't know how.

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its very difficult because it is so institutionalized (in the academy, in major corporations, in government. For universities, it could be combatted by funding denials to anti-liberal universities by the federal government. Not easy to accomplish. At a local level, the growth of activist conservative organizations of not only students but also local community members to monitor and combat leftism on campus. Additionally, there could be more civil rights law firms on the conservative side to battle institutions over anti-conservative discrimination.

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That a man of such low caliber and obvious hatred for the white race like Tommy Curry could be hired at Texas A & M and the University of Edinburgh shows me a civilization that is no longer confident. The Texas A & M of Eisenhower's age or the Edinburgh of Churchill's age would never had hired such a loathsome creature. It should be part of conservative governance at the state level to bring political equality to the academy. If a state college has fifty history professors, half must be right-of-center or funding should be cut off. We must be ruthless. Conservatives have been sleeping at the switch when it comes to education.

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in the US, this situation goes back decades. Allan Bloom wrote about it in the late 80s in his book: The Closing of the American Mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mind/. At this point, these forces are so entrenched, that it would likely take a century to change the situation with concerted action of donors, politicians, bureaucrats, alumni, etc. It seems highly unlikely a mass movement of that kind on these issues would or even could occur.

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A lot if it is NOT DOING. Don’t give to your alma mater if it’s gone over the edge. Etc. Avoid strengthening these people in any way possible.

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Off the top of my head:

What can we do? (1) Pray (2) Tell people (here and elsewhere) who support anti-Semitic rhetoric that they are wrong. (3) Make friends with Jewish people and tell them that you support them. (4) Give to Jewish charities such as Jewish World Relief. (5) Let any group or cause you are involved with, e.g., a university, that you will not donate if they support Palestinian terrorism. (6) If you are Christian, ask your pastor to state support for Israel from the pulpit if that has not been done already. (7) Perhaps take a leadership position in your denomination – even just a parish representative to regional meetings - and put forth resolution in support of Israel. (8) Teach your children and young people that the Jewish people have a right to a homeland and Palestinian terrorism (like any terrorism) is always wrong. (9) Insist that your political party's platform support Israel.

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One more - oppose support for Iran. Oppose the present administration's direction. They are fools who give money that ensures Iran can continue to give millions to the terrorists they support (by redirecting their social funds to terrorism since we are not giving them "social money").

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Re: If you are Christian, ask your pastor to state support for Israel from the pulpit if that has not been done already.

While you have some good ideas, I'm not sure I would support the above. The Church should not be a place for political preaching. More appropriate would be a position against all forms of political violence no matter who is doing them: a moral statement well within the Christian tradition.

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“But what do we DO, Rod! Does anyone have an action list of how to actually fight this? “

YES.

Dispense with your ideas and trust the words of Jesus Christ unto death.

Can you handle that?

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This is self-evident, Ken. I'm talking about the practical steps after that. Politics not grounded in Christ will never lead anywhere, but politics grounded in Christ still requires political knowledge and acumen, which I lack.

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Ahh. Yes. Thank you for the clarification.

I agree. 👍

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I'm supremely uncomfortable taking sides in what is just the latest episode in the long-running conflict between Arabs and Jews. Whilst my first instinct as a European would be to take the Israeli side, having a lot in common with the people who founded Israel, I have also noticed that this terror attack by Hamas has been gleefully used by some on the right to call for the genocide of Palestinians in pretty unequivocal terms. It also seems to be Israeli policy to enact another Naqba and drive out the remaining Palestinians from Gaza in a steamroller move, probably forcing them into Egypt or into their deaths. I cannot condone any of that and I'm appalled that some so-called Christians in the US are apparently baying for blood and are calling for the eradication of an entire people. The rank hypocrisy of not calling out Israelis for doing far worse things to the Gazans than the Russians ever did to the Ukrainians is also galling.

Apparently, when Russia cuts off power and water to the Ukrainians and forces them from their homes, bombs schools and religious buildings, it is a war crime, but not when Israel does it in their own territory. I personally just cannot deal with the double standards in the West regarding this issue. Whilst I'm not taking sides and both are pretty awful, it's pretty clear that Israel is hardly in the right here and has to take some of the blame for the situation in Palestine deteriorating to the extent it has. They elected a far-right government and have made no effort to stop settlements on appropriated Palestinian land for instance.

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I have a very poor opinion of, and deep concern for, the people of both sides. I don't think Israel the modern state was a good idea, and I don't think it can last, surrounded by people whose men are willing to give their lives to destroy it and whose women are engaged in womb-battle - the demographic strategy. That said, I hate how Israel supporters lie about how Jews have always lived there (in small amounts, mostly yes they have, but so what?) As for the Palestinians, all they had to do was pretend to convert to Judaism the way the Jews pretended to convert to Christianity when the Catholics took over Spain. Or, as the Israel supporters rightly point out, they could move to other Arab countries, if other Arab countries would have them. Fighting over land costs too much, in terms of human destruction. It isn't worth it. And when I drive down the street, I look forwards, and a bit to the side. I don't look backwards. Everyone agrees this is the best way to drive. And yet when they look at policies, they look backwards, and sometimes lie about what they see in the rear view mirror, so to speak, to justify their chosen policy. I disagree with this. What is happening to the Israelis is barbaric, awful. What is happening to the Palestinians is also heartbreaking. The only way I see for this evil to end is for one side to win, and if it is the Palestinians/Arabs, may the US and Europe open its arms to the Israeli refugees. And if it is Israel who wins, may the other Arab lands take in the Palestinians and give them full citizenship. Both the Koran and the OT are quite clear that God does not want us to sacrifice our children to Him or to idols; no children should be sacrificed for a "country." And when I see this vitriolic hatred of Jews at supposedly pro-Palestinian demonstrations, it strikes me as backwards - they are supporting Israel's continued existence by showing that the world outside of Israel hates them. My heart breaks for both sides.

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I broadly agree, though I would add there is a third option, which I would brand the Mandela option or the dreaded one-state solution. Israel could end apartheid and give the Palestinians full citizenship and allow them to participate in elections. I believe they are the majority in the country now (Israel+occupied territories, formerly Palestine), so they would probably end up running the country, just as blacks did in South Africa after 1991. Problem is, that probably wouldn't work for various reasons, just as it really hasn't in South Africa, mostly to do with the revolutionary marxist roots of the ANC. Same problem with any Palestinian party that would end up running the country, most probably they'd be an Islamist one at this point and would utterly ruin the country in short order, forcing Jews to leave anyway.

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Yes, in theory that is an option, but I agree with you that it wouldn't work, for the reasons you mentioned, and because their is so much hatred at this point between the factions. Another reason I might be considered slightly pro Israel is because if Hamas were able to get the Israelis to leave (hopefully, I don't want to consider the other option - genocide) the Palestinians would begin fighting amongst themselves - who gets the former Jewish homes which had been Palestinian homes prior? Or the Jewish homes built on land that was once Palestinian occupied? The returning refugees' grandchildren? Or the top Hamas fighters? Governance is fragile, and the Israelis have a system that works pretty well. Human organization is so precious and fragile and hard to create, that I think more people - Arab people - will die if the Israelis leave. Inertia is often underrated.

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Read from Genesis to Revelation.

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"In small amounts, I suppose they have..." Not according to just about all the Biblical and archaological evidence that has been compiled to date.

Israel will continue to exist until the Lord says otherwise.

Your approval is irrelevant.

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Agreed that my approval is irrelevant, as is yours. Biblical and archeological evidence speak to ancient times; in the 1850s the Jewish population in Palestine (historic Palestine) was about 3% and by 1922 when the British had their first census of the area, 25 years after the Balfour Declaration, Jewish population had increased to about 11%. I remember reading in a book by Karen Armstrong that at one point there was only one Jewish family in Jerusalem. And the argument that the "Arabs got there later" is likewise disingenuous. The Arab conquerors of Palestine did not displace the inhabitants, rather, they Arabized them. In American jurisprudence we have this concept called adverse possession . . . My Jewish great grandparents had been in Eastern Europe for a very long time, but left to avoid being murdered in the pogroms. It doesn't give me a right to go take back whatever land they unfairly lost when they fled. History is tragedy, and justice is what wise men aim for and fools chase. But, as I explained above, to me this is irrelevant with regard to moving forward. Israel exists, and therefore it is unwise to try to destroy it.

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Goes back further than 1850. We've already covered this. You cannot handwave away "ancient times."

I won't.

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No one is hand-waving away "ancient times." I was merely stating that the assertion that Jews have ALWAYS lived there is not true in any meaningful sense. The fact (which I concede here for the point of argument) that Jews lived there in ancient times does not mean that they have ALWAYS lived there. The fact that they were 3% of the population at one point, 11% at another point, means that even if Jews controlled/populated the land at one point, they did not ALWAYS live there in any meaningful sense. Rather like if I said I was born in Tennessee and have a birth certificate and witnesses to prove it, and I have always lived in Tennessee, and someone said but hey I knew you when you lived in Alabama for 20 years, I couldn't argue "But I have proof that I was born in Tennessee! You can't handwave that away!" To further "complicate" the analysis, we have to ask "who is a Jew?" My understanding is that the Jews who were massacred by the Western Christians during the Crusades were Karaite Jews, not Rabbinic Jews. Rabbinic Jews were not happy with Karaite Jews, is my understanding. Can Rabbinic Jews, or rather, secular atheists from the Rabbinic Jewish tradition (as most Zionists were) use the former presence of Karaites (and continuous presence of Samaritan Jews) to justify violating the Talmudic injunction to wait for the messiah who will usher the Jews back to Zion? Do you really value human life so little that these questions ever matter? (I'm only persistent in trying to lay out basic facts and questions because I think dishonesty muddies the waters and makes everything worse. As I've made clear to people capable of reading calmly, I am not arguing for the destruction of Israel.)

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"I'm not arguing for the destruction of Israel." Their history with the region, regardless of the wax and wane of the numbers. goes back at least 3 thousand years. At least. The history of Islam is not nearly that long. The Israelies have made it clear, you leave them alone, they leave you alone. The same cannot be said about their enemies.

When one begins pleading in the name of "human life", that is an inconvenient fact that cannot be ignored.

Fact is, Israel is not going anywhere. The rest is up to their neighbors. It is really that simple.

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Maybe you can point to an objective real source of “Christians in the US baying for blood and calling for the eradication of an entire people” but that seems completely false and libelous to me. I have only heard sadness for Israelis and Palestinians and deep anger towards Hamas. And as horrible as this is for Israel, the 98% or so of Palestinians in Gaza not part of Hamas may end up suffering the most from this. I find your comment above unbalanced and inaccurate at the very best.

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This is Senator Marco Rubio:

https://newrepublic.com/post/176107/marco-rubio-eradication-extreme-langauge-hamas-gaza-israel

There were a number of other on the US far-right and even more in Israel, which is the more worrying one. This kind of dehumanising rhetoric, referring to them as animals to be eradicated, is generally a precursor to genocide. Rod wrote about in his article about the language of disgust. Now, technically it is ambigous whether the people in question were referring to Hamas or the Palestinian people in general, but it sure looks like they are talking about the latter.

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I don’t see how any fair reader of that quote could say that. He’s clearly talking about Hamas and accurately. The biased new republic tries to imply he’s talking about everyone, but that’s absurd so to a fair reading of his statements. And hamas for the record deserves to be discussed in that manner. Murdering innocent civilian children, infants, women and elderly is the province of evil barbarians.

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I always knew this hack would return to his default position. What a jerk.

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True that. Christians in this country clamoring for vengeance, carte blanche for an Israeli response to wipe out these people disgusts me almost as much as what Hamas just did. I am not on anybody’s side because they are all bad. I also find it odd that conservative Christians in the US fawned all over Israel (which is a woke nation in large part- see Bibi’s invite to the acronym marchers a couple years back) even before this massacre, yet at home rage against the LGBT movement. Much of this to me is beginning to look much like the “don’t let a good crisis go to waste.”. Israel fences in 2 million people, the Hamas fighters break out, slaughter innocent Israelis, Bibi gets newfound support despite serious opposition politically, a massive retaliation destroys Gaza and many innocents (not to mention deaths of Israeli soldiers), US defense firms’ stocks head skyward, and who knows, maybe the psychopath neocons get their war with Iran. Even better. Violence begets violence begets violence.

PalestinianChristians and other Christians in the area get the short end of the stick. They’ve been putting up with oppression from both sides of this conflict, most recently having their holy places desecrated by Zionist fanatics. But the Christians don’t rate an honorable mention. BTW, Jewish Israelis dressed up as Priests to test this out and were accosted in public. Who speaks for them?

America should do nothing but broker humanitarian support and push for a cease fire. I’m not buying the “you can’t work with terrorists...” argument because we sure did, and still do in Syria.

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More to the point, Israel is not a reliable ally either (as is ant country in the middle east)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

As a nation, they have also instigated terrorist attacks against the US, not to mention continued espionage of our defense tech a la China.

It's really not too smart to cozy up with them

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O I know all about the USS Liberty. But about Operation Cyanide? That was pure diabolism and apparently involved potential nuclear destruction of Cairo. The Liberty was to be the casus belli, with Egypt blamed for its sinking. Whether that history is true, I don’t know, but the attack being deliberate cannot be disputed.

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Also, see Gabor Mate’s video on this subject. He has great clarity on this subject.

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Is this the interview his son Aaron did with his father? It's excellent. Just listening to Gabor's calming voice and overall equanimity should be sufficient to diffuse the crisis not to mention the substance of his perspective.

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As the saying goes, Nations have interests not friends.

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Dude - no matter how you slice it, Hamas exists to eradicate jews and israel from the face of the earth. They dont give a shit about palestinians. They use them as bullet-catchers.

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You're kidding, right. Blaming Israel for being attacked? That's absolutely preposterous, and offensive.

Israel has cut off services to Gaza because they're in an existential war. They're literally fighting against people who want to see them all dead - people so evil, they'll kill you even if you're not Jewish. If you're Thai or Phillipino, or French or whatever, doesn't matter, they'll just kill you for the crime of being in Israel's borders.

And to top it off, they're *forcing* Gazans to remain in the north, to be killed by the IDF. That's who they are, and Israel is awakening to the proposition that they were never dealing with people operating in good faith. You don't give those people power and water, you show them the pointy end of a missile. Anything less is to be complicit in your own destruction.

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"You don't give those people power and water, you show them the pointy end of a missile."

It sure sounds like you're referring to the Palestinians in Gaza here and not just Hamas. Whilst admittedly, Hamas is their government, this is my precise problem with the bloodthirsty language being employed by so many on the far-right. It is ambigous who "those people" or "they" are but people can sure read between the lines. It's a classic dog whistle.

I'm not blaming Israel for being attacked, just pointing out it was inevitable the Palestinians would eventually find a way to hit back at them given the policies of the government in the last several decades. That it happened in this manner, with a terror attack targeting civilians is despicable, but to say the Israeli government is unaccountable and has played no role in the situation getting to where it is now, would be absurd.

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'Those people' = Hamas. And as I said, they're forcing civilians to remain in the IDF's path. So Israel is going to target 'those people' and civilians will be in the way, which is Hamas' responsibility.

Israel played no part in being attacked. It is the only functional democracy in that part of the world and it did everything but lay out the doormat for a peaceful settlement with Hamas. It gave Palestinians workers visas. It was providing free electricity and water to Gaza. The latter was needed a) because Hamas was more interested in purchasing weapons to kill people, and b) because the pipes they were given for water were turned into rockets. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and they elected Hamas, which hasn't held an election since.

All you're doing is victim blaming. Given the atrocities that occurred, it's heinous.

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Sorry for the duplicate posts. Substack is giving me issues.

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