Gerald Posner: Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza
Good luck with that. The vast vast majority of people who say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza are immune to any facts to the contrary. It’s partly a case of not being able to reason people out of something they weren’t reasoned into in the first place. It’s also that what drives the genocide claims about Israel is the desire to claim an Orwellian reversal in which the Jews have become the Nazis.
And what drives that? Leftist hatred of Israel and decades of Soviet-generated and Arab-spread Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred. In Europe, the desire to be let off the hook for the Holocaust. In the US on the right – which is hardly immune – it’s good old-fashioned Holocaust denial and Jews-run-the-world-and-are-responsible-for-everything-bad-in-it sentiment. There’s also religious hatred among both Muslims and “Christian” nationalists of the Tucker variety. China also drives it internationally with TikTok algorithms favoring the promotion of anti-Israel anti-Jewish myths.
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim. Given the thousands of years of brutal persecution showered on Jews by European Christians, their guilt is truly immense, which has driven their consequent anger into the realm of psychotic rage. You can’t reason this away.
“Genocide” has become another term emptied of any actual meaning, like “racism.”
No, of course it isn’t. One thing we face in our time is constant lying and gaslighting. It seems to get more brazen every year. (The career of Jason Arday and the reaction to his death provide sterling examples).
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim.
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I don’t think the characters propagating this meme are the source that experience guilt.
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim.
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I don’t think the characters propagating this meme are the sort that experience guilt.
Far as I can tell, most denominations of the NCCNGTA (National Council of Churches Nobody Goes To Anymore) hold that view. I suspect, having talked to some at the hither reaches, that the bigs know they’re lying. But the pew-dwellers, looking for another hit of righteousness, slurp it up.
Art Deco:
It would be more accurate to say that sometimes the desire to avoid feeling guilty makes a person angry at the victim. Much of Europe cooperated in the Holocaust, and now teaches its younger generations about Europe’s guilt in the atrocities, and many people are not interested in feeling guilty about that. What better way to not feel guilty than to make the Jews the real Nazis?