This was the week it became clear to me that antisemitism lives.
I spent some time on Instagram, specifically on pages like The IMEU and LetsTalkPalestine. (I don’t recommend doing this- but I wanted to see what was out there because I think that people should respond to the false claims being put out about Israel on social media. And you won’t understand the false claims unless you see how they are presented by people who believe them.)
I wrote a very simple comment on one of The IMEU’s posts. It was: “Now that we know that this was actually a failed rocket launch by Islamic Jihad that hit the hospital, I hope you will correct your post.”
Here are some of the messages I received in turn.
My takeaway:
Your teenagers shouldn’t be on Instagram/ TikTok right now unless you want them to be inundated with ugly content.
Our society is sick in a very serious way. If we do not intervene now, it will continue to decay.
The best article I’ve read on this topic, and that I recommend you read as well, is this one: “How CRT Leads to Justifying Hamas’ Terrorism.”
Here is an excerpt.
Two stand out. First, is the source of human evil. The Judeo-Christian tradition places it in each individual. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9 reads. But CRT divides people into arbitrary racial groups – Black and white or Palestinian and Israeli. Those in the victim group are innocent, based on their "oppressed" status and regardless of their actions. Evil stems from the power structures imposed by the dominant group.
This is why the students blame Israel. Their CRT worldview doesn't give them the capacity to blame Palestinian terrorists – even for raping girls and killing babies.
The second assumption is how people are saved from that evil. For Christians, salvation comes from believing that Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for one's sins and calling on the name of the Lord. In CRT, salvation comes from tearing down the power structures, systems, and institutions that trap those in the victim group in oppression. In this view, Hamas is doing only what is required to help those in Gaza escape supposed "Israeli violence."
It's a racially tinged version of the class revolution sought by Karl Marx. As a reminder, the global death toll from communism is estimated to be more than 90 million.
This explains the paradox of universities cracking down on "microaggressions" but ignoring students who defend Hamas' barbarism. It's worse than mere hypocrisy. These universities are indoctrinating students with these ideas when they push CRT, "diversity, equity and inclusion" and decolonization. It's even in many K-12 schools.
Most people don't think about the assumptions beneath their worldview, but they should. Ideas have consequences. As what's happening on college campuses reveals, the ideas underpinning CRT are deeply immoral, wrong, and dangerous.
In the words of a local rabbi:
This isn’t about Jews. It’s about whether or not we want a society where murder is ok. That’s what this academic is saying and people who are not condemning Hamas are saying. All Americans of conscience need to stand up to this insanity. And I think that’s the message we need to get out. We are the canary in the coal mine. First they came for the Jews…
Excellent and unfortunately very disturbing.
I've seen so much hate, and lies, directed at CRT, but this is certainly new. Blaming CRT now for the Israeli/Palestine horrors. It appears you, like many "whites", have a knee-jerk reaction to the historical truth of America's systemic abuse of "blacks", and wanted to find a novel way to throw more hate at it. And that's just sad, because Jewish people claim systemic abuse against themselves, going back centuries, until this very day and no one is supposed to question it. At all. Its just gone too far. Jews think the Holocaust excuses them from every and anything, while you deny the condition in which "blacks" have been living, and still live, in the USA? The Israeli/Palestine catastrophe is due to Israel and Palestine, not "blacks", not CRT. (I use quotes for the terms "blacks" and "whites" because these preposterous labels have always been a farce-there is no such thing as "race"-we are all humans, with different languages and cultures, according to Torah., but how those who invented these terms and used them to their advantage cling to them!) Please, stick to Israel and Palestine, and if possible, see them both as humans. I don't know if you believe Torah, but HaShem is responsible for every human on this planet, everyone is here for a reason He decreed. No group is all good, or all bad. It wasn't the Palestinians who perpetrated the Holocaust, but they're getting treated as if they had. I encourage you to please read this article I include, because it may open a new point of a view, a view that can begin the possibility of real solutions instead of just the "we're right, they're wrong" mentality. Here's an excerpt: "Abuse of the Palestinians’ human rights by Israel is not a secret. It is well documented, not only by various human rights organizations but also in the news, including by Israel’s own the Times of Israel, Haaretz, and the Jerusalem Post.
As an example, a recent article in the Times of Israel documented the abuse suffered by Palestinians in the Bedouin shepherding community of Ein Rashash in the West Bank at the hands of settlers while Israel’s security forces were ineffective or worse. Examples of credible human rights organizations that document Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians include the Israel-based B’Tselem and Peace Now. On August 10, 2023, B’Tselem wrote, “After repeated attacks and threats by settlers and having been left with no other choice, the Bedouin community of al-Qabun, located east of Ramallah, abandoned its homes this week.”
It is not an exaggeration to say that Israel’s policies in the West Bank are a form of Apartheid and that some of the actions of settlers with the quiet acquiescence of Israeli authorities are a form of ethnic cleansing. Yet the Palestinians are getting nowhere in fighting back against the abuse. Why is that?
One can blame Israel of course, and that’s fair because Israel is after all the one perpetrating the abuse. Israel could choose to change its policies, and some previous governments have made small attempts in that direction, but it chooses not to. But I also blame at least as equally those who are supposed to defend the Palestinians but who fail miserably in that duty: the Palestinian leadership, the Palestinians’ Arab allies, the Palestinian diaspora, and the large pro-Palestinian movement.
The failure of the Palestinian leadership (which includes not only the officially recognized Palestinian Authority but also all factions that constitute de-facto Palestinian governments, including Hamas in the Gaza Strip) is the most obvious. They have missed every opportunity to move towards a two-state solution except for the Oslo Accords which the Palestinian leadership has badly mismanaged. They continue to repeatedly discredit themselves and weaken the Palestinian cause by using antisemitism, incitement, and terrorism rather than legitimate means, such as political and economic pressure, which are highly effective against Israel and fully available to them. For every step forward achieved by the Palestinians through the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and other means, the Palestinian leadership takes two steps backwards by using hatred and violence...But there is one group that is often effectively and consistently defending the Palestinians: the Jews. Many of those Jews live in Israel and many live abroad, most notably in the United States..." I hope you read the entire article. You see, there is always more than one side to consider, because we are all human. Shalom. (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-palestinians-are-abused-by-israel-yet-no-one-defends-them-except-jews/)