Israel at War—Normalization of Insanity

I wrote this comment in response to an opinion piece published in The Free Press, entitled, The Great Betrayal, with the tag line: "The left’s reaction to the massacre in Israel has many progressive Jews in the West rethinking their past activism, political affiliations, and friendships."

The progressive authors write:

“I started to see these intelligent, educated people, whose mission is to make our system better for people of color, suddenly posting all this anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian stuff,” Rose said. “I’m not changing my values, but screw the allyship. I will not stop fighting, because I believe in the causes themselves. But as for going out of my way to support, to post, to give money? I’m done.”

First, a slight correction for the authors: The leftists the authors referenced may be "intelligent and educated," but their education and intelligence does not mean they have a operational moral compass. In fact, their compass is irreparably broken. They align themselves with evil and those who support that evil, and that is despicable. They embrace a pro-palestinian narrative that is rife with outright lies (e.g., suggesting the Israel is a "colonial power" is like suggesting that Native Americans have colonized North America and are occupying Texas), historical distortion (there was NEVER a palestinian state), and psychological projection (e.g., accusing the IDF of "genocide" is absurd, particularly when Hamas and their hundreds of thousands of palestinian supporters publicly embrace the genocide of the jewish people as part of their founding documents). 

As a first step toward redemption for the referenced progressives, they need to change their allies. They also need to understand what caused all of this and why some of the ideas espoused by their Leftist friends are now edging toward a very bad place. I wrote this comment in response to their piece:

The "great betrayal" did not begin on October 7th and will not end until we realize that the underlying cause of the betrayal is our collective normalization of insanity. It used to be that insane positions were publicly rejected as ... well .. insane. But for the past decade (maybe more) a strain of Leftist ideology began to espouse ideas and cultural norms, policies and societal mandates that were insane by any objective measure.

And once we embraced insanity as something that can be accepted without question or debate, we moved on to hysteria. That in turn led to very bad ideas that were often forced on everyone, even those of us who recognized the insanity and tried to speak against it. An obvious example: with no basis in science, we embraced the insane idea that shutting down the world economy and closing schools would somehow stop the spread of the Covid virus. The authoritarian mandates that followed, and the demonization and cancellation of those who questioned this, grew out of hysteria that was driven by the normalization of an insane idea. Other examples, apocalyptic climate change ideology or the notion that our entire country is "systemically racist" also indicate the same levels of hysterical thinking.

Many on the Left embraced the examples I've noted (along with others). For them, the normalization of insanity provided a base for their claim to superior virtue, for the right to criticize the rest of us for what they fantasized as our moral failings. They and their allies within mainstream and social media, academia, entertainment and even some branches of government, taught our young people that they can only achieve social justice or climate justice or racial justice if the normalize insanity as well.

So now we see tens of thousands of college students along with many of their professors and more than a few administrators also embrace insanity. Their ignorance of history, their blatant attempts to justify barbarism by using abstractions like "oppression" or "de-colonization" would be pathetically ignorant, if they weren't so dangerous. But because they have learned to normalize insanity, they cannot see their own hypocrisy nor understand that the path they are following leads to an evil that we have seen before. They have been driven to hysteria—just watch their faces as they chant mindless anti-Semitic slogans, read their placards as they scream threatening epithets at the Jews in their midst. Remind you of anything?

Until the many good and moral people on the Left understand that they have enabled the normalization of insanity—by their support or by their silence—the embrace of dangerously insane ideas will grow within their ranks.

To those who are beginning to 'wake from woke:' When people tell you who they are, believe them! When they attack those you love, don't try to reason with them but rather condemn them and their ideas—aggressively. When your supposed allies turn on you and condemn what you know to be true and just, reject them, don't vote for them, don't donate to their causes — wake up!

Just sayin' 

UPDATE-1:

The propaganda media mentions the "pro-palestinian college protests" in passing, subtly suggesting that they are in response to palestinian "suffering." Hamas barbarism and the rabid anti-Semitism that occurs has already been memory-holed. 

This media treatment is much like the reporting on the "mostly peaceful" BLM protests in 2020 (actually violent riots that were characterized by arson, robbery, and murder). They were justified as a response to a "systematically racist" society. 

Alan Derschowitz cuts through the current media B.S. and writes:

Despite the headlines about pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, in cities around the world and on the Arab street, there has not been a single rally that is actually pro-Palestinian.

All have been anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism and often antisemitic.

None has called for a two-state solution. [I now oppose any peace accord that keeps the palestinians in place in Gaza. The canard that the palestinians are "mostly peaceful" is belied by their own words and deeds. Hamas 2.0 will prove that to be true.]

Instead, attendees have chanted about eliminating Jews “from the river to the sea” — which is all of Israel.

The most anti-Palestinian entity in the world is Hamas.

• It has killed and exiled elected officials from the Palestinian Authority.
• It has stolen food, fuel and medical supplies from the Palestinian people.
• It has used Palestinian children and women as human shields.
• It has prevented Gaza’s civilians from moving south and away from Israeli bombing.
• It has denied Gazans education and religious and political freedom.
• It has made life miserable for its people.
• It has caused the deaths of more Palestinians than Israel has.

All this was well before the war Hamas started with its massacres, which the terrorist group knew would make things worse for Gazan civilians.

An old aphorism: "Judge people by the friends they keep." That's what I do when I judge the "pro-palestinian" protesters. They are NOT pro- anything, but they certainly are anti-Israel and increasingly and overtly, anti-Semitic.

UPDATE-2:

Finally, a little spark of sanity—the U.S. House of Representatives has censured Rashida Tlaib for her "pro-Palestinian" (actually, she isn't pro-anything, rather, she's anti-Israel) lies, distortions, and blatant anti-Semitic incitement. Check that, come to think about it, she might be pro-Hamas.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the censure, and I posted a comment that got a little play. Here it is:

Rashida Tlaib is a PERFECT representative and roll model for the hundreds of thousands on the American Left who embrace the pro-palestinian movement. She has taught them how to use psychological projection (e.g., the accusation of "genocidal intent" fits Hamas a whole lot better than it does the IDF) and outright lies (e.g., suggesting the Israel is a "colonial power" is like suggesting that Native Americans have colonized North America and are occupying Texas).

At the same time, she is a "cry-bully" — subtly suggesting the bullying of Jews with her anti-Semitic innuendo, and then playing the victim (with actual tears, LOL) when a few good people in the House call her on it.

She and her leftist friends, who fought so hard to limit the speech of those they disagreed with (think: the Twitter files), now whine about her freedom of speech. Poor Rashida ... she's upset that good people have decided that her lies, distortions, and outright incitement deserve condemnation.

Her effort to justify the barbaric atrocities committed and celebrated by Palestinians (and yes ... Hamas members are Palestinian!) whiile wrapping herself in a cloak of virtue signaling makes her the most contemptible congressperson in my lifetime (and that 's a pretty low bar).