Rescuing the Underdog

 

As I watch the college students’ protests supporting Hamas and the Palestinians, I am filled with revulsion. Given their attacks not just on Israel, but on all Jews, I take their actions personally. I wonder, if they could find a way to “eliminate” me, would they try? Then my rational mind kicks in and I realize that I’m not really in any danger. Or am I being naive?

I’ve always been compelled to understand why people think and act as they do. As Dennis Prager says, he’s more interested in understanding than agreement (although that is not totally true for me as these protests continue). So here are my thoughts on what is going on.

Protestors Back the Underdogs—Hamas has done an excellent job of creating the perception that they are the victims of Israeli oppression. The fact that they have had opportunities to improve their circumstances, particularly when Israel evacuated the area, is meaningless to their advocates. That they took over successful Israeli businesses and destroyed them instead of building on them doesn’t seem to matter.

Protestors Fear Being Ostracized—Many if not most of these students have little purposeful going on in their lives. They’ve been indoctrinated by the university, and dread the possibility of being excluded because they don’t accept the current dogma. Call it the “hive mind” mentality, if you wish. It provides them with a community, a false sense of safety and acceptance.

Protestors Refuse to Acknowledge the Hamas Mission—A protestor might say, if Hamas was formed to destroy Israel and the Jews, they were only fighting back against oppression. They saw no other way to achieve their freedom and autonomy. The protestors assume they must provide at least moral support to these people.

Protestors Ignore their Acts of Terrorism—If Hamas has shot rockets into civilian Israel, it is justified; they are helpless against their oppressors, and they feel obliged to act on their anger and frustration. Israel has earned their hatred and violence.

Protestors Deny the Mass Murders—Even though in this day and age the protestors could learn the truth with the available technology, they insist that the mass murders didn’t take place on October 7. Hamas itself videotaped their violent, senseless and immoral actions to show the world their defiance of Israel. The killing of babies and burning of bodies were celebrated by their troops. That doesn’t seem to matter to the protestors.

Protestors Ignore the Taking of Hostages—I don’t know the reason for this one for a fact, but I suspect they simply disregard this information. But if any of them do know about these actions, they likely blame those who are captured: the Israelis have it coming to them, and if others were captured and killed—well, you know, collateral damage. Besides, those visiting Israel must be supporters of Israel and they deserve our disdain.

*     *     *     *

The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing. These actions show that the students and the Left are prepared to support the Palestinians mindlessly, and condemn the Jews, wherever they are. I wonder what they would say to me, about me, if they knew I was Jewish. Would I, too, be an oppressor? Would I be guilty due to my support of Israel?

Should I too be vanquished? Or killed?

Published in Terrorism
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  1. Globalitarian Misanthropist Coolidge
    Globalitarian Misanthropist
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):
    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests.  If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true. 

    How do you know this?  You don’t know what percentage of Palestinian parents in Gaza send their children to schools that indoctrinate their children to hating and slaughtering Jews.  But you somehow know this?

    • #31
  2. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    You will find protesters supporting Hamas, but what proportion of all the protesters are these? You may not want to look into this, given the situation, but if you don’t perhaps ask yourself why.

    There’s no way to tell how many are Hamas or even Hamas sympathizers. In the US, I’d question how many know the difference or if they care.

    • #32
  3. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    There’s no way to tell how many are Hamas or even Hamas sympathizers. In the US, I’d question how many know the difference or if they care.

    But you do know the difference. How does eliding it help anything?

     

    • #33
  4. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Globalitarian Misanthropist (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):
    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    How do you know this? You don’t know what percentage of Palestinian parents in Gaza send their children to schools that indoctrinate their children to hating and slaughtering Jews. But you somehow know this?

    I think Susan was talking about protests in the US, but she can correct me if I’m wrong.

    • #34
  5. Globalitarian Misanthropist Coolidge
    Globalitarian Misanthropist
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Globalitarian Misanthropist (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):
    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    How do you know this? You don’t know what percentage of Palestinian parents in Gaza send their children to schools that indoctrinate their children to hating and slaughtering Jews. But you somehow know this?

    I think Susan was talking about protests in the US, but she can correct me if I’m wrong.

    Maybe she did, but then again I elide the two.

    Just because the protesters don’t know the difference doesn’t mean they are not supporting Hamas with every flag wave and chant.

    • #35
  6. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Zafar (View Comment):
    think Susan was talking about protests in the US, but she can correct me if I’m wrong.

    Correct.

    • #36
  7. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    David Carroll (View Comment):
    In my observation, leftist activists (perhaps all of them) are basically disgusting human beings.  If there is a leftist activist, expect the person to justify setting fires (e.g, BLM); to have no respect for non-activists lives or property; to  revere freedom of speech only for themselves; to justify any despicable act in furtherance of the cause du jour.  The are essentially narcissistic, glueing their hands to the street to disrupt traffic and so on.

    See the Dark Tetrad of personality traits.

    • #37
  8. Manny Inactive
    Manny
    @Manny

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    No I think you central theme that protestors “always back the underdog” is incorrect. Protesters back what they sympathize with, and it’s not always the underdog. If you think that Islam amounts to 1.8 billion people to Judaism’s 20 million at the most, why would you say that the Palestinians are the underdog? Underdog could be framed in multiple of ways. Whoever is the underdog is irrelevant to sympathies. In this situation Muslims sympathize with their fellow Muslims and leftists sympathize with anti western societies. To them western societies are evil. Otherwise why did most leftists sympathize with communism in decades past? They weren’t exactly the underdog.

    I glanced back at the OP, and I don’t see where I said they “always back the underdog” (but I may have). I think the Left often backs the underdog. It has nothing to do with the population number; it has to do with whether people are seen as victims or oppressors. There have been a number of times when Jews have been seen as the underdog (most recently with the Holocaust); as soon as they became successful, though, they were seen as oppressors. Which are the anti-Western societies that the Left supports?

    Some people did see that Communists helped save underdogs, so they supported the Communists to save society. And it’s not always about societies. The underdogs can be groups (BLM, proponents of the new racism) within society. And if you look at why the Left hates Western societies, they feel those societies are oppressing the people, or the oppressed. I’m pretty sure I have this right, Manny.

    On re-read I don’t think you said always. My apologies. I thought you did. I remain unconvinced though. There is a self loathing in leftism. It has nothing to do with underdogs.

    • #38
  9. Manny Inactive
    Manny
    @Manny

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    You will find protesters supporting Hamas, but what proportion of all the protesters are these? You may not want to look into this, given the situation, but if you don’t perhaps ask yourself why.

    Well someone needs to tell us. I have not seen any Palistinian in Gaza, West Bank, abroad, or especially in the USA denounce Hamas. 

    • #39
  10. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    MarciN (View Comment):

    I think this war and the war in Ukraine will ultimately result in some sort of global law enactment and enforcement organization.

    In both cases, what is being disputed is the United Nations’ recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Israel and Ukraine.

    What should have happened in these cases is that the countries or regions that disputed the sovereignty and borders of both countries as recognized by the United Nations is that they would have pled their case to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for a peaceful resolution. Most likely they would have lost, and they’d have to learn to live with it.

    To suggest that Israel is an “occupier” or illegitimate owner of Israel is ludicrous, but that’s what these groups are saying. That’s why they support Hamas’s actions–because they see them as violence used legitimately to throw off an invading force in their land.

    I don’t see any other way out of this conflict and the conflict in Ukraine, among other international conflicts, than to assemble a world congress that has the power to make and enforce laws.

    This is how law and courts evolved within countries to begin with. Everyone will have to accept the final word of a democratically elected international body of law.

    I’m sorry it’s come to this. I don’t want the United States subjected to an international code of law. But I don’t see any way around it.

    How will that help?  There’s more of “them” then there are of “us”.

    I can define Them and Us several different ways – Racially, ethnically, politically, economically…

    None of them result in a good outcome for liberal western democratic freedom.

     

    • #40
  11. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    You will find protesters supporting Hamas, but what proportion of all the protesters are these? You may not want to look into this, given the situation, but if you don’t perhaps ask yourself why.

    What a load of [redacted].

    100% of the “protests” right now are in reaction to the events of surrounding the Hamas attack on Israel.

    So yes, they are pro Hamas.

     

    • #41
  12. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    You will find protesters supporting Hamas, but what proportion of all the protesters are these? You may not want to look into this, given the situation, but if you don’t perhaps ask yourself why.

    There’s no way to tell how many are Hamas or even Hamas sympathizers. In the US, I’d question how many know the difference or if they care.

    There is a way to tell.

    How many mass protests by pro-palestinians were there in the streets the night of the Hamas attack on Israel, decrying the attacks as barbarism?

    Then compare that to the number after Israel responded.

     

    • #42
  13. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    There’s no way to tell how many are Hamas or even Hamas sympathizers. In the US, I’d question how many know the difference or if they care.

    But you do know the difference. How does eliding it help anything?

     

    Where are the “not in my name” rallies by Palestinians in “exile”?

    Can you point to a single one anywhere in the world?

    All I see in the mainstream media (CNN, Gannet-level newspapers)  is stories about Palestinians worried about the effect the Israeli reaction is going to have on Gaza.

     

    • #43
  14. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Democracy in action:

    .

    • #44
  15. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):

    I think this war and the war in Ukraine will ultimately result in some sort of global law enactment and enforcement organization.

    In both cases, what is being disputed is the United Nations’ recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Israel and Ukraine.

    What should have happened in these cases is that the countries or regions that disputed the sovereignty and borders of both countries as recognized by the United Nations is that they would have pled their case to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for a peaceful resolution. Most likely they would have lost, and they’d have to learn to live with it.

    To suggest that Israel is an “occupier” or illegitimate owner of Israel is ludicrous, but that’s what these groups are saying. That’s why they support Hamas’s actions–because they see them as violence used legitimately to throw off an invading force in their land.

    I don’t see any other way out of this conflict and the conflict in Ukraine, among other international conflicts, than to assemble a world congress that has the power to make and enforce laws.

    This is how law and courts evolved within countries to begin with. Everyone will have to accept the final word of a democratically elected international body of law.

    I’m sorry it’s come to this. I don’t want the United States subjected to an international code of law. But I don’t see any way around it.

    How will that help? There’s more of “them” then there are of “us”.

    I can define Them and Us several different ways – Racially, ethnically, politically, economically…

    None of them result in a good outcome for liberal western democratic freedom.

    People have been arguing about this since the dawn of recorded history.

    Which is better: wars or laws?

    Neither is a guarantee of justice.

    But we do seem to be moving in the direction toward laws.

    I think also that the stakes are much higher than they used to be. Weapons of mass destruction involve much larger areas than limited war used to involve. I don’t see the civilized world agreeing to live under a nuclear or bioweapon Damocles sword.

    NATO has been an attempt to create an organization of states so strong that no country would dare to attack any of it. In some ways, Israel has been trying to create alliances in the Middle East for the same reason. Bigger is stronger and safer.

    I don’t think a world land court is going to make anyone happier than they are today. But I do think it is inevitable.

    I don’t want to see it happen. It will result in a new layer of taxation and bureaucracy, for starters.

    • #45
  16. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    The moment the Hamas flags come out, or the “river to the sea” chant starts, it’s a distinction without a difference. 

    • #46
  17. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    The moment the Hamas flags come out, or the “river to the sea” chant starts, it’s a distinction without a difference.

    #YGDR

    • #47
  18. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    The moment the Hamas flags come out,

    Yes

    or the “river to the sea” chant starts,

    No.  That assumes that the only way Palestine (and Palestinians) can be free is by killing or expelling  all Jewish Israelis. And that is simply not true.

    it’s a distinction without a difference.

     

    • #48
  19. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Zafar (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    The moment the Hamas flags come out,

    Yes

    or the “river to the sea” chant starts,

    No. That assumes that the only way Palestine (and Palestinians) can be free is by killing or expelling all Jewish Israelis. And that is simply not true.

    I gave up on the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (stars & bars) when it became clear that its biggest fans had ruined any innocuous interpretation.

    River -> Sea now has only one meaning.  Too bad more of the innocuous types didn’t take exception to it being so “perverted” I suppose.  Mmmf.  What a shame.

    • #49
  20. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Zafar (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: The willingness of the protestors to go along with this savagery, based on lies and myths, is very disturbing.

    It’s a human failing.

    For example, calling all pro Palestine protests pro Hamas protests. If it’s repeated often enough it becomes ‘true’ in a narrative – but it isn’t actually true.

    The moment the Hamas flags come out,

    Yes

    or the “river to the sea” chant starts,

    No. That assumes that the only way Palestine (and Palestinians) can be free is by killing or expelling all Jewish Israelis. And that is simply not true.

    It’s not the only way they can be free, but it seems like the only way they’d be satisfied.

     

    • #50
  21. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    BDB (View Comment):

    River -> Sea now has only one meaning. Too bad more of the innocuous types didn’t take exception to it being so “perverted” I suppose. Mmmf. What a shame.

    Have any pro Palestine protesters ever said this slogan means to kill?

    I think you’ll find that’s only claimed by anti Palestine institutions.  With the objective to paint any pro Palestine slogan as antisemitic.

    It’s hasbara, and for its target group it’s effective.

    • #51
  22. Globalitarian Misanthropist Coolidge
    Globalitarian Misanthropist
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    River -> Sea now has only one meaning. Too bad more of the innocuous types didn’t take exception to it being so “perverted” I suppose. Mmmf. What a shame.

    Have any pro Palestine protesters ever said this slogan means to kill?

    I think you’ll find that’s only claimed by anti Palestine institutions. With the objective to paint any pro Palestine slogan as antisemitic.

    It’s hasbara, and for its target group it’s effective.

    First Saturday, then Sunday doesn’t mean to kill, either.  You need to meet with your moslem friends more often.

    But I’ve asked his question before, too.  Morally, does “push them into the sea” apply equally to the Palestinians?  Is turnabout fair play?

    • #52
  23. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Globalitarian Misanthropist (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    River -> Sea now has only one meaning. Too bad more of the innocuous types didn’t take exception to it being so “perverted” I suppose. Mmmf. What a shame.

    Have any pro Palestine protesters ever said this slogan means to kill?

    I think you’ll find that’s only claimed by anti Palestine institutions. With the objective to paint any pro Palestine slogan as antisemitic.

    It’s hasbara, and for its target group it’s effective.

    First Saturday, then Sunday doesn’t mean to kill, either.

    They aren’t chanting that, are they?

    You need to meet with your moslem friends more often.

    So should you Flickr.  I hope we would change your mind about us.

    But I’ve asked his question before, too. Morally, does “push them into the sea” apply equally to the Palestinians? Is turnabout fair play?

    true – anybody who thought that was okay can’t make a moral objection to it happening the other way.  (And vice versa.)

    But again – it’s a phrase much ‘quoted’ by anti Palestinian institutions.  I don’t know that it’s used much by Palestinians themselves, if at all.

    interesting:

    https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/02/20/did-arab-states-really-promise-to-push-jews-into-the-sea-yes/

    • #53
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