A protester wears a keffiyeh shortly after October 7 (IRFAN LICINA/AFP via Getty Images)
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Any thinking Jew today hears the alarm resounding like a shofar blast in days of old, announcing rising floodwaters or marauding Cossacks. Confronted with a worldwide, increasingly violent explosion of antisemitism, the mind turns to dark mysteries. Why have radical groups of all stripes, including all the usual suspects, coalesced in support of a suicidal death cult that raped, tortured, and murdered 1,200 Israelis and has publicly pledged to eliminate the Jewish state?
While the maligned figure of the Jew has historically been an all-purpose scapegoat, one thing seems clear enough. Western antisemitism is now primarily fuelled by identity politics, a cultural version of Marxism that analyses injustice not in terms of class, but of race, sex, ethnicity and religion. For the radical avant-garde of 2024, the revolutionary agent of global justice is not the proletariat — the united workers of the world that Marx expected to overthrow capitalism and birth the Communist utopia — but Hamas. And yet, today’s cultural Marxists nevertheless recapitulate the moral and intellectual deficiencies of the master’s philosophy. They, too, reject the central teachings of the Bible, twist and debase its narrative of salvation, and embody the fratricidal spitefulness against which it repeatedly inveighs.
Start with the perverse elevation of brutal terrorists with roots in Nazism. Most people recognise evil when they see it. Marx muddies the waters by locating evil not in individuals, but in society. While he disdains capitalists and Jews (two groups he regards as virtually identical), he rejects the pre-modern consensus of Hebrews and Christians that man is by nature a depraved animal. In this, he follows Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Comparing miserable 18th-century Europeans with the “noble savage” of his imagination, a happy and compassionate being whose existence he inferred from reading anthropological accounts of native Americans and Africans, Rousseau concluded that men and women are by nature as good as Adam and Eve on the day of creation. But institutions like the division of labour and private property, cornerstones of Western civilisation, have made them servile and vicious.
In suggesting that civilisation is a source of withering illness, Rousseau sowed the seeds of late-modern revolutionary nihilism. For if civilisation makes us sick, why not just tear it down? More immediately, his gauzy idealisation of human nature greatly encouraged the French revolutionaries, who struck directly at what they took to be the roots of the sickness. Seeking to wipe away the old ways so that they might reconstruct society according to abstract principles, they slaughtered priests, peasants, nobles, and royalty, watering the soil of liberté, égalité, and fraternité with rivers of blood. It was DEI with guillotines.
Marx framed Rousseau’s seminal ideas in economic terms, producing a sweeping material history to rival the Bible’s sacred one. He argued that evolving modes of production determine nothing less than the systemic organisation of societies and the form and content of their predominant opinions. His apocalyptic vision of salvation through revolutionary liberation from injustice is a secular adaptation of the book of Revelation. Here, too, the faithful are saved, but fundamental values are transposed. While the heroes of old — Macauley’s “brave Horatius, / the Captain of the gate”; Beowulf, slayer of Grendel, a monster of “Cain’s clan” — defended civilisation, Marx cemented in the popular consciousness the romantic idea of the anti-hero, who tears it down. The seeds of radical chic, epitomised in Che Guevara T-shirts, were planted in the Communist Manifesto.
Observing the Dickensian wretchedness of English factory workers in the first half of the 19th century, Marx argued that capitalism oppresses workers by alienating them from their labour, its products, their historically malleable “species being”, and, through class antagonisms, their fellow human beings. These injustices corrupt and debase all social classes, from the high and powerful — the owners of capital — to the Lumpenproletariat, the lowest of the low: a “social scum” of criminals and vagrants who function as “bribed tool[s] of reactionary intrigue”. Only one class, the proletariat, is an exception to this rule. Mind-deadening labour and grinding poverty strips these workers of health, education, security, sobriety — everything but the delusion of religion, the “opiate of the masses”. Yet, Marx insists, they differ from all other social classes under capitalism in one decisive respect: because capitalist society has given them nothing but misery, they have zero interest in its preservation.
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SubscribeBlimey, Jacob, that was brilliant, and underscores the notion that cultural Marxism is a purely destructive force built on an anti-civilization mobilization of ignorance.
Agree generally – but I wonder whether we’re not over-egging this a bit.
Right across the West the class divide is widening faster than at any time in history. It’s traditional for elites to deflect from this by creating scapegoats. The Roman patricians did it, so has every plutocratic elite since. Jews are the traditional scapegoat. It’s no accident that it is almost universally the children of the rich who are engaged in this.
That’s pretty insightful. This current strain of Anti-semitism does seem to be coming from the rich.
I completely agree. I would just like to know who gave you a downtick! Must be one of the Hamas worshipping ilk! Those cowards never mention legitimate reasons or engage in discussion, but hide behind anonymity and cover up their own ignorance. Despicable lot.
I stopped reading at “Why have radical groups of all stripes, including all the usual suspects, coalesced in support of a suicidal death cult that raped, tortured, and murdered 1,200 Israelis and has publicly pledged to eliminate the Jewish state?”
Surely, even if you support the war in Gaza 100%, it’s possible to understand that people against the war are not necessarily supporting the attack on Israel, but protesting against the destruction of civilian life in the war, the one that is happening now? To not realise that, and to paint them all as mere supporters of a ‘suicidal death cult’ shows an astounding lack of insight, or perhaps something worse.
Well, if you’d read the rest then you would know that’s not what he’s suggesting. Moreover, it’s hard to misunderstand what the chant ‘From the river to the sea’ implies, which most of these protesters eagerly shout. Would you care to offer an alternative interpretation of it that doesn’t mean the eradication of the state of Israel? In this there is a difference between those who are and remain concerned about the appalling loss of life in the conflict, preferring to make their feelings known in other, more reasonable ways, and those who take to the streets, faces covered, chanting hateful, antisemitic slogans. These people are obviously driven by more than ‘peaceful protest’, and, as far as I can see, that make up a majority of the visible protestors we see today.
“Well, if you’d read the rest then you would know that’s not what he’s suggesting.”
I’ve read it now. It’s largely concerned with the politics of a different era by people that have been dead for at least a century, and the foundations of religions from a couple of thousands years or so ago. The latter is at least relevant, but the labelling of pretty much anyone who protests about pretty much anything as a cultural Marxist is a sweeping generalisation much like the phrase I quoted in my original response. It’s a pseudo-intellectual veneer for an inability to see shades of grey.
“Moreover, it’s hard to misunderstand what the chant ‘From the river to the sea’ implies, which most of these protesters eagerly shout. Would you care to offer an alternative interpretation of it that doesn’t mean the eradication of the state of Israel?”
Like you I think it implies the destruction of Israel. Why do you query me on it – neither I nor the article author mention it? Just another generalised assumption.
However, is it most, all, or some of the protesters that shout it? How many in the various protests are uncomfortable about it, but feel strongly enough about current events to be there anyway? How many are just ignorant/stupid and don’t know what it means, but still want to protest?
Okay, fair point, but let me ask you this: where was all their collective outrage in the wake of October 7? Instead, the stories of Jewish victims were discounted as fiction – the women were not really raped, no one was beheaded, no jihadis were excitedly talking to their parents about having killed Jews. Except that all of those things happened and was recorded.
I’m sorry you find the characterization of Hamas as somehow off-base, but what’s the polite way of describing a group that actively seeks the extermination of others and routinely uses its own people as cannon fodder?
Intentionally or not, you’ve made the same pivot that Dennis highlights. Not everyone speaking out—nor even a majority of those protesting the way this war is being waged—supports or defends Hamas in ANY way.
“Okay, fair point, but let me ask you this: where was all their collective outrage in the wake of October 7?”
Probably the same place as other peoples are when they hear of a tragedy that’s happened to a group they have no particular affinity with. People can be rather uncaring I’m afraid.
“Instead, the stories of Jewish victims were discounted as fiction – the women were not really raped, no one was beheaded, no jihadis were excitedly talking to their parents about having killed Jews. Except that all of those things happened and was recorded.”
No doubt about it. But I come on here and see many comments about how the suffering of Palestinians is not as great as made out, the numbers are exaggerated, or how they deserve it because they support Hamas. Every single one of them. Is that any different? Should I dismiss the attack on Israel because of such comments?
“I’m sorry you find the characterization of Hamas as somehow off-base”
I have no particular objection to that characterisation of Hamas. I object to the assumption that anyone who protests against civilian deaths in Gaza has the same beliefs as Hamas.
Like it or not, people tend to be judged by the company they keep.
Those of us who oppose terrorism would never lend our support to a protest movement which is – if not led by Hamas – clearly supportive of Hamas’ goals.
“Surely, even if you support the war in Gaza 100%, it’s possible to understand that people against the war are not necessarily supporting the attack on Israel”
Absolutely, but that is not what is actually happening. The celebrations of Hamas’ attack began in demonstrations, on college campuses and among politicians of the left while Israelis were practically still being massacred in their homes. We can all hear what these protesters and their supporters are actually saying and read what their signs say. We can see the attacks and vandalism on Jewish people and sites.
It would be a very different conversation if these protesters were actually interested in addressing the conflict in the way that most reasonable people agree it must be addressed: By separating the Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza and parts of East Jerusalem into a Palestinian state committed to living in peace alongside Israel.
But they aren’t. Naive western politicians pretend they are, but they aren’t. There was an excuse, perhaps, to be ignorant of what they were actually protesting for back in October but any continued ignorance at this point is wilful.
‘it’s possible to understand that people against the war are not necessarily supporting the attack on Israel, but protesting against the destruction of civilian life in the war, the one that is happening now?’
The fact is that Hamas instigated and led the Oct 7th atrocities knowing full well what Israel’s reaction would be. Countries have gone to war for much less valid reasons than Israel did, so it wasn’t hard for anyone to predict what would follow.
Hamas could have reduced the deaths of Gazan civilians by allowing them access to the tunnels. It chose not to do so and is on record as having stated that civilians were not allowed into the tunnels.
Hamas also controls the data given out to the media regarding the numbers of deaths. It goes to great pains to indicate how many children were included in the number of deaths – yet conveniently fails to identify how many of the deaths included Hamas fighters and their Gazan helpers. Needless to say, the reliability of this data is in doubt – as is the belief that Hamas is acting in good faith as opposed to turning Israel into a pariah state as the precursor to Israel’s total destruction.
Anybody who can’t see this, seems to me to be either wilfully ignorant or stupid or blinded by ideology.
Marx was a fool. Worse, he was an articulate fool.
Worse yet, an articulate self-loathing fool with a following who used his own guilt at being a) privileged and b) of Jewish descent to whip the uneducated masses into a frenzy. A classic agitator who relies on useful idiots.
Even worse than that: a parasite who never ever worked , never did anything productive ( I think that we can agree that neither ‘Das Kapital’, nor ‘The Communist Manifesto’ are products in the sense of something that would improve people’s lives). He lived a parasitic life of a “professional revolutionary” TM , entirely relying on his friends who supported him and his constantly growing family. He was not capable of providing for his own family, but had aMessiah complex and dreamed of turning the entire world upside down.
Typical of all Marxists and neo-Marxists who are spoilt, parasitic narcissists, who have never done anything productive and are full of envy and hatred.
Marx wrote more like a Misotheist than an Atheist. He hated and resented God. When Misotheists like Marx attempt to invert the Bible and discretely replace it with Alchemy and Anthropopogy they just end up confirming the Bible’s message about heresy. When they build their tent city paradises that start warm and fuzzy but descend into anarchy, they are confirming the Bible’s message about human nature.
I don’t know why Secularists won’t just acknowledge that the Bible gets human nature correct. By Secularists, I don’t mean Atheists, I mean people that fail to see the empirically obvious perceptions of Christianity and Judaism are better than any system “rationalists” can construct through technocratic expertise. Doing the Antithesis of the Bible confirms the message. Ideological Subversion like Marxism reinforces the message.
I don’t know about the UK but I feel like the US is starting to bounce back culturally. It’s not going to improve overnight but the polarization is starting to get blunted by optimism that the Fake Compassion Anti-Meritocracy Industry is crumbling and getting replaced by the well intentioned more qualified people. The country is actually starting to act like a melting pot and not a salad bowl. The sports leagues have ditched left wing politics. Most brands are de-wokifying. Some people may not like the syncretism but I’ve listened to some great new upbeat songs lately. Morgan Wallen/Post Malone, Shaboozey etc. The 80’s in America had a great culture and music because of optimism. Neo-Marxism promotes nihilism. No society can flourish in Nihilism. If we stop creating fake problems and outrages than we can function like a real society.
Well said. I can somewhat forgive Marx as in his day, one could easily point to dozens of wars and numerous examples of the worst sort of violence perpetrated by the organized churches, which at that point had long since been co-opted by the noble class and were used for political purposes and to protect power in much the same way modern aristocrats have co-opted academia and media. We are all prisoners of the moment in the sense that we are defined partially by the culture, environment, and era in which we live. Marx did not live to see secular philosophies produce horrors like the holocaust, or see his own philosophy twisted into the purges of Stalin and Mao. He did not live to see the concept of ‘total war’ invented and implemented by secular societies or the colossal numbers of dead that the world wars would produce. I often wonder if Marx were alive today, would he even defend his own philosophy in light of the intervening facts.
Modern thinkers and academics have no such excuse, yet they persist in rehashing the same tired old tropes in the hopes that some new application of ideas that history has repeatedly rejected will succeed in conjuring the brave new world they envision. Perhaps for some, the allure of utopia is simply irresistible, and no matter how obvious the illusion is, they will find ways to convince themselves it is real. Perhaps it’s a symptom of too much affluence leading to irrational overconfidence and haughty pride (those who declared 1991 to be ‘the end of history’ come to mind). Then again, perhaps it’s simply a case of the religious impulse inherent in humanity having no outlet in modern scientific minds and thus being psychologically transferred into an array of dysfunctional quasi-religious political/social beliefs that are then held and proselytized with a level of zeal that put to shame many a Bible-thumping old lady (looking at you Greta).
I would tend to agree about America. The US has already re-invented itself more times and changed more in its short history than many of the world’s oldest civilizations. One of the advantages of not being based on an ancient culture is a certain amount of flexibility. At the end of the day, the USA has always been a place where pragmatism trumps dogma, and I don’t see that changing. The politicians still fear the voters here. As much as they might want to, the aristocrats and international plutocrats can’t completely overcome the checks and balances built into the constitution by Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin nor can they generate enough consensus across a wide enough area to change it. The system is working, or rather not working, exactly as intended.
Moreover, as much as we appear divided on most things, there are still a few basics Americans can find common ground on. As much as we fight over nonsense that doesn’t really matter like ‘culture wars’, we can still agree on the basics. Even as he repudiated Trump in every way, Biden left the China tariffs untouched and added even more sanctions. That’s the power of consensus. The politicians don’t dare appear to be soft on China because that’s the one thing most Americans of all political stripes can agree on. It’s good to know that Democrats and Republicans can still at least agree that concentration camps, government control of all media, and social credit scores are bad while free speech and democracy are good, a few spoiled young Tiktok addicts notwithstanding. There’s something to be said for getting back to the basics.
Well said, Steve; T-Bone. What we need today is just a few good men ….
The politicians still fear the voters here.
Indeed and there is still a substantial proportion of Americans that are inherently “conservative” and due to the demographics of immigration this is increasing (unlike Western Europe where the demographic is largely North African/Islamic) as a perverse result of the progressives open door policy.The balance under the American voting system is tipped by a relatively small percentage so I’m inclined to believe that the pendulum doesn’t need to swing back much to effect Federal change.
Pedro, it was a big mistake on them to open doors to Latinos 🙂
Cheers Steve. Good post.
Have you ever stopped to think that your analysis of bible v. anti-bible demonstrates one thing above all else: both are inadequate and their legacies – god setting up the Jews as “the chosen ones to be hated” and Marx setting up class division with hatred of capitalism – ultimately inhumane, self-destructive and a really, really stupid paradigm that needs to be overcome?
All religion, whether ‘sacred’ or secular, is just a psychological crutch. Throw the crutch away, and walk freely.
Well said, laddie.
It must be nice to be the first human being in history to be 100% objective – free of any kind of ideology at all.
Oh, wait…
We all all live inside frameworks of prejudices, many of them unexamined.
Marx was born into a world whose intellectual paradigms were much more monolithic than ours. It was necessary for him to attack the extant framework in order for people to see that it was, indeed a framework (and therefore that it could be changed).
He was scarcely alone in this, On the Origin of Species came out only a few yeas before volume 1 of Capital. Freuds “interpretation of Dreams just five years after volume 3. And Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity was published just a few years after that.
In the course of 50 years, those four individuals smashed the non-ideological, common sense understanding of the world, and our place within it, to smithereens.
Anyone who says that they are free to walk without “psychological crutches” is deluding themselves.
more eloquently put than I was going to say-thank you and spot on.
as so well stated by Herbert spencer who i suspect was a tad more intelligent than either me or “Lancashire Lad”
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”
I suspect you’re categorising “Lancashire” here in a contemptible way, which is precisely why i chose it; in addition to which, “intelligence” doesn’t confer insight.
Ooh, that’s neat, thank you.
Is it a stupid paradigm though? The Jews have been around a long long time and outlived many of the tribes, empires, and regimes that tried to annihilate them. Maybe the rules that were passed on to them by G*d were the perfect blueprint for a healthy, thriving, and prosperous society? Even when smashed apart, exiled to all corners of the world, and imprisoned in death camps, they find a way to set themselves apart and become successful. Can’t say that about the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Romans – empires much more powerful than biblical Israel. Where are these empires today?
When the Jewish empire fell to its more powerful neighbours, Jewish religious leaders set about building a cultural and religious, rather than physical, empire, with strict rules for membership, elaborate rituals, and, not least, a thirst for knowledge and debate. That’s where the enduring nature of Jewishness comes from.
Only 15 or 16 million of us ….if you count the people of part Jewish ancestry then I think we add another ten million…..since we are marrying outside of the tribe. By all reckoning we should be like the Samaritans of whom there are about 700 in total.
of course you must remember that the Palestine nation the most ancient on the planet and of pre adamite ancestry is the one civilization that has outlived all the others.
Yes, I have and I’m aware of your perspective. You’ve elaborated your beliefs and I have many friends that share them with you. As I noted before, I’m not going to get into an evolutionary debate about the Gulo gene or chromosomal fusion. I’m not arguing for a literal interpretation of Genesis either. But make no mistake, I am comfortable discussing Macroevolution.
My issue with your position is that its not rooted in anything. If you believe the universe is governed exclusively by random chance than any meaning you give to life is by definition a “social construct.” Social constructivism in that sense is logical. As you know, what we’re dealing with is nothing more than Social Constructivism on steroids. The concept of “Human Flourishing” is likewise abstract and subject to constant revision governed by competing needs and the evolution of society. The idea that we’re constantly debating what it means to be “Human” only reinforces the notion. If you can’t decide what Human Nature is than you can’t build a society.
There is no notion more compatible with “sustainable” human progress than the idea that all Humans are constructed in the image of God. If you reject that notion, you have to engage in the same type of value-laden gymnastics that you believe Christians and Jews perform to justify the existence of God.
You seem to be a good person and I don’t argue that Christians/Jews are “better people” than Atheists. I think many Atheists are more grounded in biblical values than Christians/Jews. But why? Pragmatism is one answer but that pragmatism comes from an incorporated value system. Erase that value system and you will get something like either Spiritual Socialism or Brutal Social Darwinism every time.
Thank you for providing a much-needed spiritual perspective on the unfolding madness.
I’d note that the problem goes back much further than Marx, or even Rousseau. It stems from a Gnostic heresy, thousands of years old, that believes a select few possess a secret knowledge that entitles them to direct the spiritual evolution of mankind. And that knowledge is – surprise surprise – that God wants to enslave us while the serpent wants to set us free. Hmm, I wonder who could have come up with that doozy?
Following this heresy tends to be an elitist pastime, despite the protestations that they’re doing it all “for the people”. Contrast that with the Gospel. Jesus taught in the open. He was publicly executed. And the news of His resurrection was preached “among the nations” by disciples who wanted the whole world to know. Nothing secretive about this. Salvation is open to all.
As a final note, the Bible barely ever condemns atheism. It is, however, full of injunctions against idolatry. That’s what we’re seeing today. From intersectionality to pornography, our problems come not from our lack of worship, but from worshipping the wrong thing.
Glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How about glory to the mother and the daughter making it a matriarchal society? Perhaps then there would be less warring.
Men and women are both made in the image of God. We are commanded to honour our father and our mother. St. Paul writes that there is “neither male nor female…for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
This equality is so much deeper than anything expressed in earthly political ideologies like feminism or men’s rights activism.
That God chose to Incarnate as male, and to use the language of ‘Father’ so we might better understand the Trinity, doesn’t change the fact that we are all God’s children, and that He has made salvation available to us all through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m afraid AT is irretrievably lost to counterargument, although he does have some interesting insights. Such a shame, in my opinion, that humans are still wasting their lives on following narratives from before we even knew the Earth travelled round the sun.
It may surprise you to know that most scientists continue to study the laws of nature based on the fact that there are laws, not randomness, in other words the hypothesis of a Designer. To be sure. modern philosophy of science has veered away from explicitly assuming a Christian God, but the presumption of design is stubborn.
Let me ask you a question. Where does the element carbon come from? Not sure? It’s pretty amazing since we are all made of it.
An excellent recent work on the presumption of design in the appearance of carbon in the universe and the other elements in the Periodic Table (for example) is found in Stephen Meyer’s “Return of the God Hypothesis”. People who find strong evidence for an external designer of the universe are not all rubes, as you suppose.
No. You’ve misunderstood the meaning of law in that context. The use of the word law does not imply that something made the law, just that things behave in certain ways.
The latter part of your argument is just based on ‘isn’t it amazing that things are the way they are, otherwise we wouldn’t be here’. Which ignores the fact if things weren’t the way they are we wouldn’t be here to ask the question.
huh?
I can’t think of one single successful matriarchy. Can you?
At this point in time, we’ve had enough women in leadership positions to repudiate that claim. As evidence I give you Claudine Gay, Minouche Shafik, Liz Magill, Elizabeth Holmes, Hillary Clinton, Jacinda Ardern, Nicola Sturgeon, Cristina Fernandez and Indira Ghandi among others. Not that I think that only men are qualified to run things, my point is that power and politics generally attract pathogical liars, scam artists, apologists for the rich itching for their turn at the corporate trough and other people with no moral compass whatsoever, whose only guiding principle is the will to power.
Thank you for writing this. I’m reading it on Pentecost Sunday and, despite leaving the church decades ago, have found myself longing to get back in touch with the Judeo Christian tradition that shaped my country ever since October 7th. The Jews of Israel are all over our shared holy book. How unspeakably horrific that _they_ are the ones seen as imposters to the Middle East.
This piece is absolutely stunning. A masterful distillation of the mindset of the vast bulk of the Unherd commentariate into a careening Gish Gallop through the bogeys that so fixate them.
And upon what is this bloviation based? Where’s the evidential foundation for this trip down Ben Shapiro’s memory lane and right up Jordan Pieterson’s back-passage? What has Howland provided to link his bedtime tirade of calumny to the motives of today’s protesting students?
“a remark recently overheard at the University of Texas, as police broke up a demonstration”.
It’s as hilarious as it is utterly pathetic.
Thanks for the sanity! I was amazed at how the commentators gushed at the pressing of their hot buttons.
I would not quite condemn Jordan Peterson in the same breath, he mostly has more nuances in his views. But all in all, Bravo!
Right. Isn’t it amazing how complicated the explanation gets if you want to avoid the obvious interpretation?
People protesting about Gaza are simply horrified by the actions of the IDF/Israel – and the fact that the perpetrators are Jewish has sod all to do with it.
Article 19 of the Geneva Convention states:
“The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.”
I hadn’t mentioned the hospitals Samuel. Would these be the same hospitals where they keep finding mass graves?
Why were they not worried when Muslims and Russians were doing it? If you dislike Jews – fair enough. But be man enough to admit it.
What is the “it” that Muslims and Russians were doing in my post.
I don’t dislike Jews, although I am beginning to think I might dislike you.
Who says they weren’t worried when Russians & other Muslims were doing it (some of us certain were when it was the Saudis in Yemen with our weapons). Why can’t you see that protesting the actions of ones own government is a completely different thing to protesting the actions of another?
Absolutely right George – it really shouldn’t by now, but the sheer number of words some of the writers here manage to get through on this without every mentioning any of the Palestinian victims still manages to amaze me.
Do not over complicate. The young generation are ill educated and dumb. The entire educational system has been debased and stripped of analytical thinking to serve the progressives social engineering/equality agenda of having 50% of youth in our rapacious uni ponzis. Probably 25% of youth are in mental anguish from the terrors of social ostracism via groupthink on SM and the BBC’s criminal propaganda on climate (life expectancy of under 40), lockdown catastrophism and Diversity. The youth further inhabit a nasty progressive aggressively secular Me Me Human rights obsessed society stripped of and unmoored from its traditional moral judaeo Christian and communal bonding foundations. None study History. So it is no surprise that they so readily seek to imbibe the vile hatreds of Jews so prevalent amongst both hard Left and Muslim activists.
This is a brilliantly sweeping and well written article, and I am in total agreement with the authors opposition to many of the developments on what he terms the “culturally Marxist left”. However therein lies what is is in my view a fundamental flaw of this analysis – for, beyond the the designating and self designated labeling, are these movements in any real sense “Marxist” or even of the left at all? As “leftish” (and in some cases Marxist ) authors as various as Helen Pluckrose, Alan Sokal, Kenan Malik and Frederick Jameson have argued, in their absolute indifference to class (except as a shallow identity category) socio-economic analysis and building solidarity across apparent difference these movements stand in fundamental opposition to the basic tenets of left wing and indeed Marxist tradition. The postmodern cultural and epistemological relativism which underpins them might be seen, rather, as Jameson argues, as the cultural logic of late capitalism – an intense hyper liberal subjectivsm in which reality (including material reality) becomes a matter of personal choice and whose endpoint is not greater diversity but various forms of illiberal authoritarianism. At the same time the racialized identity politics – allowing also for a historic anti-Semitic “socialism of fools” on sections of the left – in which people are held in common by a particular unchanging characteristic of either privilege or victimhood – replicates far right ideology. My final point is this – there are valid criticisms of the socialist and Marxist traditions to be made, the slate is certainly not clean, but if these “culturally Marxist” movements really are “Marxist” or even of the left then quite why have their basic nostrums been so eagerly adopted by corporate and public institutions – because they can offer a veil of radicalism/progressivity whilst offering no real threat to the system?
The Right may underline this as the true expression of multiculturalism. I see it as the revenge of the colonised, to which Islam has lent the most effective war machine.
Islam developed probably the most successful colonisation strategy in world history, up to and including the self-identification as “the colonised”.
The power crazed love criminal elements, noble (or otherwise) savages included, to help pursue their aims.
This was one of the best essays I have ever read. Truly exceptional in its astuteness and by clearly naming the senseless resentment, even hatred, of civilisation and the limits it sets for society that motivates these playacting revolutionaries who complain about police violence yet condone and even relish the horrific slaughter committed by Hamas.
If true you should read more essays
I suppose that depends on how many essays he has read. If he has read a million essays, then surely this one would rank among the best; wouldn’t you think?
“Build a crooked foundation and you’re fighting it all the way to the roof”
It’s as true of arguments as it is of houses.
When seeking to explain something, shouldn’t we start with the simple, non-consipratorial explanation rather than the elaborate paranoiac one?
The kids are angry what is happeing in Gaza. Which is simpler and more likely?
.
They have seen children blown to pieces in real time via social media and they want it to stop.
They have fallen under the sway of Marx and that has been a gateway to wider Jew hatred.
.
My point is, if you insist on opting for explanation 2 then your explanation of how this happened requires this enormous superstructure of what these kids believe. With no evidence that this is their actual thought process. It requires this particular reading of Marx as a usurpation of the role of the church. It requires us to accept that the kids are steeped in this immensely specific ideological soup without actually being aware of it or having read any other history.But if you opt for the first explanation, it arises perfectly clearly out of the values those kids might have bene taught in any Sunday school. Don’t kill kids, two wrongs don’t make a right etc.
Which is simpler? Which is likelier? wWich is the more reasnable explanation?
Do these kids hate brutally one-sided warfare or do they hate Jews?
There has been a lot of talk about proportionality in the law on self-defense.
It does not mean that the defensive force has to be equal to the force used in the armed attack. Proportionality means that you can use force that is proportionate to the defensive objective, which is to stop, to repel and to prevent further attacks.
I agree. In principle.
But that isn’t what this article is about. This article insists that the motivation of the protestors is some form of marxist jew hatred rather than the more obvious abhorrence of violence.
You can call the kids naive and you can argue that the mass slaughter of Palestinians is regrettable but necessary but to refuse to engage with your critics on the basis that they are antisemites is dishonest.
That was my point.
As to your point about proportionality. As I said, I agree. However, in order to use that argument, you implicitly rely on the proposition that your actions can be effective in securing your defense. Let us imagine that later this afternoon, Israel were to declare their objective of destroying Hamas complete. 15,000 Hamas fighters KIA out of a total of 40,000 or so total dead and “only” 13,800 of those killed children. A dirty job indeed but at least it’s done now.
How would a stable peace be built tomorrow? Could Israel then withdraw from Gaza and accept a two state solution along some version of the 1967 borders? No. Of course not. Even if every single member of Hamas had been killed, the resentments created through so much death and destruction will have created the successor to Hamas. And those beyond Gaza who grieve for their friends, relatives and compatriots will not quickly forgive Israel for these deaths. These people do not hate Jews because of the ancient history of european antisemitism (real and deplorable thogh that is). They hate Israel because of what the state of Israel is doing right now to people they love.
Israel cannot bomb its way to security. Even if it were to kill or expel everyone in Gaza, its neighbours in Jordan, in Egypt, in Iran would loathe them for generations and it will not be secure.
So the moral problem of Israel’s self-defense plainly cannot be overcome by a utilitarian argument about effectiveness.
A child could see it. These protestors can see it.
Jacob Howland could see it if he would let himself. But he refuses to do so and so he has to wrap himself in his paranoid delusions that people hate all Jews for some imagined long-ago bullshit reason, rather than deploring Israel (and its defenders) for its very real current actions.
I’ll buy explanation A if you are talking about a ten year old. I think explanation B is more accurate for the young adult…
Interesting. Why?
Do these kids hate brutally one-sided warfare or do they hate Jews?
While you offer a false choice, it is possible to hate both warfare, one-sided or not, and Jews. The reality of this has been played out on multiple college campuses where Jewish students and faculty have come under assault.
Where were these kids on October 8? In the US, multiple members of Congress either downplayed or discounted the stories of Hamas’ atrocities. When a video of those events played on a screen on one campus, it was dismissed as propaganda. It’s not clear that many of these students have the “thought process” you mention. They have been conditioned to hate specific groups, the ones who have built successful societies, be those groups white, Asian, or Jewish. When you see signs proclaiming “Queers for Palestine,” what thought process is in play?
I’m not offering a false choice, I am asking why, if someone’s motivations may be either perfectly legitimate or utterly hateful you would you assume them to be hateful?
As to members of Congress downplaying what happened on 7th October. Can you cite an example? I certainly remember Biden talking about the beheading of up to 40 babies – an incendiary charge that has been completely debunked (two children under three died on that day and neither was beheaded). Similarly, the charge of widespread sexual assaults – initially widely repeated by senior US politicians has crumbled under scrutiny from, among others, the Intercept.
As to your last, I think it means “as a group that was oppressed until very recently, we queers stand in solidarity with Palestinians who are currently oppressed.”
What do you suppose they are thinking?
During the early weeks of this conflict it was common for those who supported the cause of Palestinian self-determination to be asked, often quite aggressively, whenever they appeard on TV “But do you condemn the actions of Hamas on 7th October?”
Eventually, it petered out when almost every single one of them immediately said “well yes, of course I do.”
So, at this point, when at least thirty times more Palestinians have been killed and as many as 400 times more Palestinian children have been killed can we ask the same question of people like Mr Howland yet?
Does he condemn the indiscriminite violence used by the IDF?
If not, why not? And, if he does condemn it, why shouldn’t protesters be similarly outraged about it?
When Nazi Germany attacked England, England bombed German cities with factories and other war-making potential.
Civilians died by the tens of thousands. Was that wrong? Does that mean that England (gasp!) committed ‘war crimes’? No. Those deaths are on Germany, not England.
Did Germany commit to ‘revenge’ or ‘days of rage’ against England after they lost WWII and much of their territory? No, they committed to peace, and rebuilt their country in peace and harmony. A lesson for all of us, I think ….
Israel is more than not breaking any international agreements (not laws) regarding war. If Hamas continues as illegal combatants embedded within civilian populations and infrastructure then ALL deaths resulting in Gaza are the fault of Hamas and the other genocidal fanatics.
The world knows that allowing the Arabs in Gaza to continue to get away with it’s atrocities is just a recipe for more atrocities. Israel must extirpate the genocidal fanatics from Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. If they are hiding under a baby carriage then they still must be eliminated.
The indiscriminate carpet bombing of German cities was certainly a war crime even though it was embedded within the wider context of a justified war. Not only that, the military justifcation – that it would break the German will to fight – was largely a fantasy. Peter Hitchens is very eloquent on this.
Returning to Israel. I’m interested that you describe Hamas as an illegal combatant. Whatever you may think of Hamas, tthe Palestininas are an occupied population. As such, they have a legal right to armed resistance. (albeit that they need to observe the wars of law in doing so and, clearly, on 7th October, they didn’t). Arguably, it is Israel that has no right to strike against Gaza – its duty is to end the occupation.
It is not indiscriminate violence. It’s called “a war.” Grow up. Happens every day. There were much bigger wars than this about which you didn’t care. When Muslims were killing Muslims you were silent. When Russians were killing Muslims you were asleep. But now it’s Jews, suddenly you are animated.
I am almost ready to applaud the depraved cycnicism of that shrug. Just a war, who cares? And if you care about this one more than any other, the only explanation can be that you’re a filthy antisemite.
What a pathetic smear.
As to the indiscriminate nature of the violence.
The link in my earlier piece takes you to Save the Children who say that 13,800 palestinian children have been killed since 7th October – about a third of the total confirmed fatalities and not far off the proportion of children within Gaza’s population.
In other words, Israel’s attack on Gaza is nearly as likely to kill children as it is to kill anyone else. Whatever else you may say about the justifications for Israel’s actions, this is indiscriminate, is it not?
For reference, 3% of the victims of the suicidal death cult that raped, tortured, and murdered 1,200 Israelis on 7th October, were children (same source).
He does have a point. If it were two Muslim countries at war it would barely make it to a newspaper editorial. It’s easy for us to judge Israel from the comfort of our armchairs, but we don’t know what it’s like to live alongside people who would have no qualms videotaping themselves slicing you up. Hopefully, recent events will help encourage Palestinians to engage in a moment of self-reflection.
Cobblers. What determines the intensity of Western engagement itls the extent of Western complicity and strategic interest.
If Algeria and Libya were engaged in a territorial dispute in the desert, I doubt there’d be much attention, true enough.
But back in the 80s the Iran/Iraq conflict was very much in the news because we, the West, were busily and lucratively arming Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the hope that he, an acknowledged monster would deal a death blow to an even worse bogeyman – Khomeini.
That war was an obscenity and decent westerners tried to stop that too.
And it’s a shame that they weren’t successful because an emboldened and Western-armed Saddam then outlived his usefulness and we know where that lead.
All of which is beside the point because the real flaw in UH’s argument is that “you cannot criticise this thing because you did not criticise some other thing” has no meaningful validity at all.
This isn’t a war. It is a vengeful reprisal attack against an uprising by an occupied people.
The aim of this attack is not to destroy Hamas, it is to obliterate Gaza and its people. It is actually recruiting any survivors to the ranks of Hamas.
Even the Washington Post (13 May) is running opinion pieces on that. It quotes Peter Mansoor, executive officer to General Petraeus and expert on the Iraq “Surge” … “The Israelis by their actions are creating more future combatants than they are eliminating in the near term. Inevitably, Hamas 2.0 will rise from the ashes of the current fighting.”
An occupied people? Have you ever opened a history textbook in your life?
One group actively seeks the elimination of the second and has done so for years. The same cannot be said of the second group. Perhaps this will help you to unravel the mystery you are confronting. War is nasty stuff, which is why society typically encourages others to not start one.
And which group is the genocidal one?
But yes, war is indeed nasty stuff. Which is why Western powers should be straining every lever they have to bring the killing to an end and figure out a peace plan.
Not shipping bombs to Tel Aviv and shielding Israel from non violent pressure at the UN etc.
First of all, where is the data coming from? Hamas.
Remember that they don’t differentiate between their own combatants as everyone else including women and some children in their older teens. Thus, the actual number of innocent civilians killed to combatants is probably much lower than any other conflict -you might say that is still too much but then you would be holding Israel to a standard no other country is held to.
Secondly, remember that many Hamas rockets backfired (e.g. Shifa) and they have prevented Gazans from fleeing, sometime shooting them – So we must ask how many have been killed by Hamas directly?
Third, Hamas embeds itself amongst a population with the express intent of having its civilians harmed and to have people, such as yourself, appalled by the death of innocents. The rules of engagement however allow, and rightfully so, attempting to kill said terrorists in such a scenario.
Fourth, on proportionality Hamas has sent in thousands upon thousands of rockets into Israeli civilian population centers and the only reason only a handful have been harmed is because Israel invests in defending its civilians while Hamas does not (and see point 3 and 4).
True that. On your first point: maybe you’ve seen it, too, but today even the BBC said on its news site that even the UN has revised down the number of Palestinian women and children, after checking the data (hmm… data?) provided by Hamas.
Q.E.D.
And 5th, Hamas was elected by the so called Palestinians and, by all accounts, the actions of Oct 7 were wholeheartedly supported by the people of Gaza. Hard to call any Gazan who supported the Oct 7 massacres innocent. In this way they are similar to Germans in WWII, who voted the Nazis into power and mostly supported the war, until they started losing. The German civilian population also suffered mightily for their support of the Nazi party and the war, but their suffering engendered little sympathy from most of the rest of the world. Why the difference between the attitude towards German civilians and Gazan non-combatants?
Orwell said:
“Every bright young person becomes a socialist, not able to see the hook in the doughy bait.
The left loves idolising savage murders. How many had the murder Che Guevara’s image on their wall?
Wait. I must have gotten off at the wrong exit.
How does Marxism have anything to do with the pickle we’re in? Aren’t you just seeing the world thru Marx-colored glasses?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Marx is dead!
And Marxism is like Latin; purely a specialist’s concern.
Also, anti-Semitism is far older than Marx. It doesn’t require a reason. It’s more like a mental condition.
In academic circles, Marxism is alive and well. His words are often used to describe and justify the current ‘oppressed/oppressor’ system we are told that we are in.
Exactly. Marxism has nothing to do with it. This is a truly awful article and I’m staggered to see people describing it as brilliant.
This article could have been mote or less replaced by words such as ‘people that are generally left wing, generally take the same side on most topics’. No need for such a convoluted and dense discussion of the thoughts of dead people.
Whatever ism one wishes to choose, the current cultural angst boils down to the familiar – the politics of envy. Jews as a group tend to be successful, productive, and not engaged in killing each other like other societal segments one could name. Of course, people like this will scapegoat Jews. They do the same to whites, Asians, and anyone else who cannot be cast as a victim.
Also, it began with October 7 itself. More than one leftist, including members of Congress, either downplayed or flatly denied that some of Hamas’ horrific activities even happened, despite the video evidence to the contrary. In their wake, we have a bunch of entitled affluent college kids cosplaying as would-be martyrs, except not a single one of them wants to do more than be seen as holding the “correct” views.
Anti semitism is a serious subject but not to be taken seriously when used as a cloak to distract from the revengeful and murderous annihilation of 35,000 people, many of them women and children.
Yes, Hamas’ actions resulted in the deaths of untold thousands. I hope they will learn from this and move toward peace rather than instigate more hate and violence.
Keep up. That figure’s been halved: https://youtu.be/sU5JWIkWEXs?si=GglS6bWvoo5MepNg and there is nothing revengeful or murderous about the fact the way the IDF is fighting.
Scratch a liberal hard enough and you’ll find a fascist.
I’m not a religious man but I love this piece for the points it makes about the current woke incoherence and the inherent ludicrousness of Marx’s portentous declarations ‘DEI with guillotines’, nice.
I began reading and will have to return to finish. My one thought about the salvation of European civlization…or even Western civilization is that while the Eurovision judges snubbed Israel , the public across Europe voted their confidence in Ms Golan….so I take this as a win….not on university campuses or on the streets which are now hamas territory but the hearts of people who realize what atrocities are who are the criminals in this piece. (glad the USA is not part of the Eurovision thing…we have enough music shows of our own)
It is now 4 days after the publication of this article and all likes and dislikes have been zeroed down. I do see a few random 1s though. This is not the first time I see this and I wonder what this means. Is this a bug or a feature?