Brendan O’Neill on Hamas and our university leftists
It is time to ask ourselves if our woke elites are not just Hamas’s useful idiots, but its unofficial spindoctors. Not just excuse-makers for Islamist barbarism, but authors of the very justifications the Islamists offer up for their barbarism.
He’s right about the connection, but he’s wrong about the order of things. It’s mostly the other way around: the woke postmodern line on Hamas has come down from Muslim radicals teaching at our universities, and this has been going on for many decades already. But the Palestinians’ message has also come from the left via the Soviets, and before that from the Nazis themselves through the person of al Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem.
These are huge topics, and I’m not going to further explore them in this post. Maybe in the future.
Update on Gerard Vanderleun’s book
I finished the final copy editing, one of the more tedious tasks. It’s my third go-round on what is an approximately 250-page book. It’s astounding how much concentration is needed to copy edit; I keep finding errors even though I’ve gone through it over and over. I think at this point I have to arbitrarily declare that aspect of things finished.
But there are plenty more tasks ahead. I need to get a few blurbs from other writers. I need to make the final decision on the covers. In particular, I have to decide what company to use to print the actual books (there will be an ebook version too, but that will be done through Amazon). Then I need to set up a method and webpage for taking orders and a way to get the books to the readers. There are many possibilities, much too tedious to mention here. I’ll keep you posted and also let people at Gerard’s blog know, plus I have a huge list of emails of people to inform.
It’s a surprising amount of work. I had hoped to get the book out in time for people to buy it for Christmas presents. That’s still theoretically possible, but I’m not at all sure it will happen.
Video roundup
I find that there are many good YouTube videos on the topic of what’s going on between Israel and Gaza. Here are two recent ones. (I suggest, as usual with these talking heads videos, going to “settings” and watching at either 1.5 or 1.75 speed):
And here is Victor Davis Hanson, talking about his viewpoint on Donald Trump. The entire thing is well worth hearing, but I’ve cued it up for the shorter segment on Trump:
Suella Braverman fired; Cameron replaces her
Suella Braverman was just starting to grab my attention. Then just like that – poof! – she’s gone. But she may return in some other capacity in the future, particularly as a challenger for the role of head of the Conservatives.
Braverman was the UK’s Home Secretary, and the reason I noticed her recently was that I was listening to a YouTube clip of a British radio show and caller after caller mentioned agreeing with an article she’d written criticizing the police for using a double standard in dealing with the recent anti-Israel protests. Braverman had claimed that the police favored the pro-Palestinian wing. The callers were also particularly incensed with the fact that a big demonstration had been held on what is known in Britain as Remembrance Day (Veterans Day here). Braverman obviously is a populist hero to a large group of Brits who are fed up with what’s happening in their country.
And so apparently she had to go, according to the central wing of the party. But did Sunak have to bring Cameron back?:
While her removal was no surprise, it was the appointment of Cameron which caused shock in the party. It was welcomed by more centrist lawmakers but loathed by some on the right who described it as the ultimate “Brexit surrender”.
It seems like a great big F-U to the Brexit crowd. It gives Labour – which seems to already be way ahead in polls – a ready-made opportunity to further criticize:
The Labour Party has consistently held an around 20-point lead in the polls, and [PM] Sunak has failed to reduce that gap.
He tried to relaunch himself as a representative of “change” at his party’s conference last month, when his message was overshadowed by a poorly communicated decision to cancel part of the country’s biggest rail project.
Labour had called Sunak weak since Braverman’s article was published on Wednesday. Now, opposition lawmakers said his decision to appoint Cameron was an act of desperation.
Lawmaker Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, said: “A few weeks ago Rishi Sunak said David Cameron was part of a failed status quo, now he’s bringing him back as his life raft.”
What a mess. When strong conservative voices are needed, Britain gets this. On that same radio show I was listening to – before Bravermn’s sacking – the callers were also already calling Sunak weak and gutless. I can just imagine what they’re saying now.
NOTE: By the way, the Sunak/Braverman spat is an example of an altercation between two people of East Indian ethnicity, a little bit like our own Haley/Ramaswamy spat. Braverman was born in London and her husband is Jewish; he came to the UK as a teenager from South Africa, also has lived in Israel, and has relatives in the IDF.
Open thread 11/13/23
Spambots of the day
Count ’em, two.
I assume this one is meant to be a compliment, but I’m not too sure. Perhaps it’s mocking me:
You always have something favorable to claim. You make me laugh.
This one’s definitely a compliment, albeit a redundant one:
I am in awe of your creativity and also imagination. I’m constantly excited by your knowledge as well as knowledge.
Pro-Hamas riots in Manhattan
The police don’t seem to be able or perhaps willing to control these violent and organized mobs. Very chilling.
As Douglas Murray has said in many recent interviews, if the authorities won’t control this, regular people may take it on themselves to do so, and that will be even more dangerous.
How did we get here? Gradually, then suddenly.
The minds of Hamas and the minds of the Einsatzgruppen
There have been a lot of comparisons between Hamas and the Nazis in terms of their violent hatred and genocidal intents. I think such comparisons are valid although of course hardly exact; many details are different although the Jewish target is the same. Hamas operatives seem worse than the Nazis in their sheer sadism and delight in torture and other horrors. It’s not that the Nazis didn’t employ such sadistic individuals – they did, but that sort of psychological makeup doesn’t seem as though it was quite as common among Nazis as among the Hamas killers.
Most people who are familiar with the genocide during the Holocaust are likely to think first of the death camps, with their gas chambers that made it less necessary for the murderers to kill their victims up close and personal. The better analogy would be the earlier murders in Eastern Europe by the Einsatzgruppen, who shot their victims and buried them in mass graves. Many of these killers were “ordinary” men who had been convinced this action was not only right but necessary.
I believe the same is true of many of the Hamas killers, particularly the ones who merely dispatched their civilian victims without the extras of torture and rape.
The other day I was doing some research and I happened across this. I was already familiar with this sort of reasoning on the part of German members of the Einsatzgruppen squads, and I think this is an excellent example of how the mindset worked:
Walter Mattner, a policeman who took part in the murder of the Jews during this first action [in a Belarus city called Mogilev], described the shooting and how he felt about it in a letter to his wife:
“[When we shot the Jews brought by] the first truck my hand trembled somewhat during the shooting, but one gets used to it. By the tenth truck I was already aiming steadily and shooting accurately at the many women, children, and babies. I thought about the two infants that I have at home, to whom this gang would do exactly the same, if not ten times worse. The death we were according them was a short and beautiful one compared to the hellish sufferings of the many thousands in the torture chambers of the [Soviet] GPU. […] Let’s get rid of this brood [of Jews], who pushed all of Europe into war and is now agitating America also until it too is dragged into the war. […] I’m already looking forward to it, and many here are saying that when we return home, then it’s the turn of our local Jews.
As historian Christopher Browning points out, Mattner desired to justify the murder of children and babies … He rationalizes the murder of Jewish children by the “need” to protect his own children.
The idea that the Jews caused WWII was a huge German propaganda point that was relentlessly hammered home to the German people. Hitler was so wedded to the idea that he included it in his last will and testament, composed shortly before he committed suicide. It’s quite a document; here are some of the relevant portions:
It is untrue that I or anybody else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was desired and provoked entirely by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish origin or who worked in the Jewish interest. …
But nor have I left any doubt that if the nations of Europe are once more to be treated only as collections of stocks and shares of these international conspirators in money and finance, then those who carry the real guilt for the murderous struggle, this people will also be held responsible: the Jews! …
But before everything else I call upon the leadership of the nation and those who follow it to observe the racial laws most carefully, to fight mercilessly against the poisoners of all the peoples of the world, international Jewry.
Hamas has certainly taken up the torch, and they are hardly alone.
The voting fraud dilemma
Commenter “Tom Grey” notes:
The Dems have upped their game on cheating – most Reps refuse to even note that the cheating is happening.
I assume what’s meant there is Republican politicians rather than Republican voters. The majority of Republican voters and those who lean Republican believe the 2020 election was fraudulent and don’t seem shy about saying so.
But many Republican politicians are faced with a dilemma if they want to discuss the issue at all, and their opponents are well aware of their dilemma. In a very red state it probably doesn’t matter. But in any election that promises to be at all close, if the GOP candidate takes a stand on this issue then that candidate risks alienating moderate voters, including moderate Republican voters.
It’s an old old story, although the details keep changing: whether or not to “pivot to the middle” in the general election. The pivot risks alienating the base, and the lack of pivot risks alienating the moderates who are often needed for victory.
The left and the current administration have managed to successfully demonize those who believe the 2020 election involved fraud. The latter are called “election deniers” – as though belief in election validity is some sacred creed and those who don’t believe are “undermining our democracy” and “insurrectionists” as well as “MAGA Republicans.” The message has been relentlessly and quite successfully hammered home, with the help of a complicit MSM.
As I’ve written many times here, once we lose the trappings of election security – voter IDs, strict signature verification, in-person voting – the public is going to doubt the veracity of the outcome of any election that is even remotely close, and some that are not. Without those safeguards, election fraud is possible to pull off and also very difficult if not impossible to prove after the fact. This possibility and the resultant perception of fraud is what “undermines democracy,” whether or not fraud ever occurs or ever can be proven.
Open thread 11/11/23
Evolution? More like devolution. Maybe the technique gets better, but who cares? The incomparable Fracci, the first on the video (1971), is the only one whose dancing really interests me. Notice also that she dances faster than the others. Over the years, most dancers have gotten rather slow and not very fluid or expressive either, because they are concentrating so hard on their perfect show-offy technique and striking poses (the third dancer isn’t really as thin as she looks here; her video is somewhat distorted):
Why is Eric Adams being investigated?
Adams may indeed be guilty of something, but there are other Democrats who probably are guilty of something and are not being pursued by the feds. Why Adams?:
The FBI seized the phones of New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Friday. The move came as part of a sweeping investigation into a donor scheme in which the Turkish government and others allegedly illegally funneled money into Adams’ 2021 political campaign.
The mayor’s top fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, had her home raided on November 2nd as part of the probe. One of the factors being looked at is whether Adams offered kickbacks to a Turkish construction company. At the time, the New York Times reported that there was no “indication” that the mayor himself was a target of the probe. That dynamic has apparently changed. …
Some are suggesting that Adams is being targeted because of his outspoken opposition to the Biden administration’s immigration policies. …
In September, Adams gave a speech in which he suggested that New York City would collapse if illegal immigration wasn’t curtailed.
In addition, Adams spoke out very strongly in mid-October in favor of Israel and against Hamas. I wonder whether that might have been a factor, too.
Recall also that Senator Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat who was investigated and recently indicted (and may indeed also be guilty), has long been a critic of the Obama/Biden Iran deal, perhaps the only Democrat who can claim that status. He also a few weeks before his arrest had been critical of Biden’s money-for-prisoners swap with Iran.
One wonders.