The Return of the Progressive Atrocity. By Susie Linfield.
In the age of the “progressive atrocity,” PLO terrorist attacks on Israelis, Jews, and civilians throughout the world were hailed as instruments of liberation.
A very partial list of such incidents would include the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics (the games continued, nonetheless) and the Lod Airport massacre the same year (death toll: 26, along with at least 80 injured); the Ma’alot massacre of 1974, in which 115 Israelis, mainly schoolchildren, were taken hostage (resulting deaths: 31); the Entebbe hijacking of 1976, in which Israeli and other Jewish passengers were separated from others and threatened with death (most were rescued by Israeli commandos); the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, in which a civilian bus was highjacked (death toll: 38, including 13 children; 71 wounded); the 1982 attack on the Chez Jo Goldenberg kosher restaurant in Paris, considered at the time to be the worst incidence of antisemitism in France since the Holocaust (death toll: six, with 22 injured); and numerous other instances of air piracy. Various international groups, especially Baader Meinhof of Germany and the Japanese Red Army, sometimes assisted their Palestinian brothers “in solidarity.” Not all leftists or leftwing organizations supported these actions, but to criticize them was a sign of “bourgeois moralism” as Ghassan Kanafani, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, put it. …
In recent years, the Left’s embrace of terror seemed to have ebbed; you won’t find many defenders of al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, or Boko Haram. The notable exception has been groups devoted to the destruction of Israel: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, all of which still garner enthusiasm and deluded admiration. …
The extraordinary nature of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have swept through the capitals of the West — demonstrations that began before Israel dropped a single bomb on Gaza — has, perhaps, not been fully appreciated. Horrific massacres of unarmed civilians are, unfortunately, taking place right now in South Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Syria, and Darfur. Unforgivably, the so-called international community usually ignores them. But none inspires cries of esteem for the perpetrators and acclaim for their crimes. And nowhere are the victims — defenseless civilians, including children and their mothers — blamed for being murdered. That is what is happening now. The deadliest single day in the post-Holocaust history of the Jewish people has been greeted in some quarters with joy and — to be blunt — an entirely undisguised hatred of Jews. …
Talk about useful idiots:
In 1979, leftists who supported the Iranian Revolution had a rude awakening when the mullahs came to power and promptly executed them, along with secularists, union organizers, intellectuals, feminists, and everyone else who fit into the enormously capacious category of a counterrevolutionary.
There was a lesson here: Activists have the responsibility to know who and what they support, and to separate themselves — openly and decisively — from programs and regimes that are predicated on violence and repression.
Similarly, those who imagine that Hamas’s slaughters may have promoted “liberation,” “justice,” and “freedom” for Palestinians, as the banners demand, have a big surprise in store.
Unlike Iran in 1979, though, there’s no mystery as to what kind of state Hamas (an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement) aims to create; we need only look at what it already has created. This time, no one can plead ignorance. There’s little liberation, justice, or freedom to be found in Gaza, where there are no opposition political parties, no elections, and no freedom of religion, the press, or protest. Opponents are arrested, tortured, and sometimes executed. (Yahya Sinwar, a head of Hamas’s armed wing, was known as “the butcher of Khan Younis” for his brutality toward other Palestinians.) Abortion and homosexuality are outlawed (what are those protestors with “Queers for Palestine” signs thinking?); mentioning trans rights would be unwise. It is legal for husbands to beat their wives, and so-called honor killings go unpunished. The ruling clique is notoriously corrupt, and though Gazans are very poor, Hamas is a very rich organization. “I Stand with Palestine!” demonstrators and writers proudly proclaim while lauding Hamas for having “rejuvenated a sense of political possibility” and hastening “the hour of liberation.”
But what, exactly, are they standing for? And what kind of liberation will this be? Aside from the Taliban, Hamas has established the least progressive pseudo-state on Earth. …
What do you do with neighbors brainwashed since birth to kill you?
A ceasefire (as opposed to a humanitarian pause) would be entirely unilateral on Israel’s part, which raises the question of why Israel would lay down its arms against a forthrightly eliminationist enemy that holds more than 220 hostages. What would happen the day after that one-sided cessation? (Hamas has shot almost 10,000 rockets into Israel, including Tel Aviv, since October 7th; in the north, Hezbollah launches attacks.)
Apparently, Hamas should be allowed to keep its bombs and bomb factories, assault rifles, drones, grenades, missiles, rockets, and tens of thousands of fighters as it plans future mass slaughters. How this will lead to anything approaching peace, as its advocates insist, rather than to war ad infinitum, as Hamas promises, is bewildering. The other option, of course, is that many believe that unending death and destruction are precisely the conditions that Israelis deserve.
Hamas does not recognize the category of “civilian” when it comes to Israelis, which is why a straight-faced, high-level Hamas spokesman could tell Britain’s Sky News: “We didn’t kill any civilians.” He wasn’t exactly lying; that’s just how he sees it. …
The enormous numbers of unarmed Palestinians who have been, in Hamas’s parlance, “martyred” are no problem for the leadership: as the group’s founding document explains, “Death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of … wishes.” That is not mere rhetoric; as the massacres unfolded, senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh insisted that “victory or martyrdom” are the only choices. Ordinary Palestinians, who had no say in the attacks, may see things differently. They are stunned by and terrified of the fury of the Israeli response. …
Unlike the “martyrs,” including children, whom Hamas is proud to sacrifice, its fighters are safe underground where they hoard stocks of food, fuel, medicine and, of course, weapons. Much of the senior leadership, however, lives in luxury in Doha, Tehran, and other cities. Hamas’s desire for dead Gazans has never been more evident than in this war. It has not joined the international calls for a humanitarian corridor, and it refuses to release the kidnapped hostages, which is the precondition for ending the siege.
The white population of the world is about 8%, and Jewish people are just a quarter of one percent. What if the whole world became brainwashed by wokeness to hate whites, the way that many hate Jews? They hate our accomplishments, our economic competitiveness, our whiteness … Yes, whites did invent the modern world. Get over it.
They make everything about race, then encourage all the non-whites to hate whites.
