By Artem @Adobe Stock
Innocents Are Part of the Strategy
Does anyone care that Uyghur slaves are struggling? Amongst their struggle, in case you wondered, involves the incongruity of keeping up with demand for Palestine headscarves (Keffiyehs).
According to reports from the Babylon Bee (whose humor Charles Lipton seems to get), Keffiyehs used to be made in Gaza. That was before China squeezed Gaza-made scarves out of the market for economic reasons. Now cheaper “made in China” is all the rage on campuses and pro-Palestine gatherings.
The protesters’ attire is a hidden mark of the international trade they (the protesters) loath.
Interesting how many pro-Palestinian protesters are foreign, yet none of them seem to have a problem with globalization. But then, no one accuses the mob of global coherence, observes Mr. Lipton.
What is it about Gaza that excites such large, ferocious, and often violent demonstrations?
Why are there no massive demonstrations about other human-rights atrocities around the world? Why is the campus silent about Hong Kong and the prisons in Siberia? Why such intense focus on Israel, which often bleeds into open antisemitism?
The Hatred of Apostates
Keffyehs have more than a purpose of hiding. Like bank robbers, they hide one’s identity. Scarves may hide identity, but do allow progressives to show their virtue. Pardon me, you might not like what I’m doing, but that’s your problem. I’m showing my virtue.
Students Ignore Other Atrocities
What is it about Gaza, wonders Mr. Lipton, to spur “large, ferocious and often violent demonstrations?
- Why are there no massive demonstrations about other human-rights atrocities around the world?
- Why is the campus silent about Hong Kong and the prisons in Siberia?
- Why such intense focus on Israel, which often bleeds into open antisemitism?
Charles Lipton’s Answers
First: the nature of the hard-left coalition on campus:
It centers on two groups, both of which position themselves as righteous victims. The number one domestic victim are African Americans. The number one international victims are Palestinians, plus Muslims more generally. Other victims run the gamut, Native Americans, queers, transgenders and others. White students and increasingly Asian Americans are labeled as the oppressors or victimizers. Their only chance at salvation from their “sin” is to make common cause with the putatively oppressed and follow their lead. Hispanics are rarely part of this coalition, even though their professors are.
Second, these hatreds have been stoked by the left:
“Long March through the Institutions,” which began with 1960s radicals who became professors and has now permeated K-12 education, both because of the teachers’ ideology and the unions’ political position. The Long March has been extraordinarily successful in achieving its ideological goals.
Why Israel?
Because, for the left in the US, Canada and Europe, the Jewish state represents so much they hate, wrapped into a single package: capitalism, nationalism, Western religion and economic prosperity success thanks to hard work, intensive education and merit. Since the state’s formation in the 1948, Israelis have resolutely avoided the self-conception of “victimhood,” on which all campus politics is built.
The Holocaust, a true genocide, killed more than 6 million and destroyed European Jewry. Arab states have repeatedly launched wars of annihilation against Israel and expelled virtually all Jews from their territories, where Jews had lived for centuries.
The ideological left and their Muslim allies demean those refugees as part of a “settler colonial” influx.
The smear of “settler colonialism” is a staple of every Middle East studies program and has spread through fields such as anthropology, English literature and other humanities. The faculty there were hired by true liberals, several decades ago. Their commitment to diverse viewpoints was not reciprocated by the anti-Israel scholars who came to dominate those departments. Applicants for faculty positions or graduate study would destroy their chances by letting slip that they were Zionists.
Third, the ongoing war in Gaza is visible on cable networks and TikTok, presenting an obvious target for demonstrators:
Human-rights violations in most of the word are hidden from view. Seen any Chinese prisons for Uighurs lately? The war in Gaza, on the other hand, receives a lot of media coverage, including disturbing pictures of destroyed homes and larger buildings. It is easy to visualize the people, many of them innocents, who died in that devastation. Though civilian deaths were not Israel’s goal and Israeli Defense Forces have tried hard to avoid them, civilian casualties are inevitable in urban warfare.
By occupying civilian structures and using civilians as shields, Hamas has a two0fold strategy:
- Hamas knows that civilian casualties add to the anger at Israel.
- Hamas know Israel may be reluctant to target Hamas structures and gatherings if civilians are present. using innocents helps its strategy to fight the kinetic war on the ground and the cyber war in the media.
Fourth, Hamas has been far more successful than Israel in telling its story — a story that has resonated with students primed by leftist teachers:
Since the reporters covering the war don’t have extensive local knowledge or sources, they rely heavily on “stringers” who are closely connected to Palestinian organizations, fear retaliation from Hamas if they don’t hew the terrorists’ line and actually spew casualty figures distributed by a Hamas propaganda organ, which has labeled itself the Health Authority. Did you hear this Health Authority object to terrorists using hospitals as hideouts and shooting galleries? No. Did they object to terror tunnels being dug under those facilities? Of course not. The main goal of the “health authority” is not the population’s wellbeing, it is Hamas’s victory.
Fifth, the strong alliance between Washington and Jerusalem gives local protesters a target much closer to home:
The US sells weapons to Israel and works closely with its high-technology defense industry for mutual benefit. Since Israel has world-class universities, there are multiple exchange programs for students and faculty. Why don’t many students go to exchange programs in Jordan or Algeria? Name a world-class university there.
These connections between Israel and American universities, corporations, and the government, points out Mr. Lipton, give students a foothold to damn them all as responsible for the war in Gaza.
Since hyperbole is the language of these demonstrations, they scream that President Biden is “Genocide Joe.” They say the same about college presidents and provosts. The police are, of course, “pigs.”
Today is not like the 1960s, when demonstrators then chanted ““Hey, hey, LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?” Today the epithets are directed by a new generation at the world’s oldest target: the Jews.
