The response to the response

Yes, it's about the middle east. Sorry.

This is not going to be my usual sort of thing, but I wanted to use this Substack as a way of getting stubborn thoughts out of my head, and this topic is something that revolts me on a daily basis. I will not go too far into any lurid details, but this will be about the Hamas massacre against Israelis and the consequent war. Or rather, it will be mostly about the Western social fallout.

The October 7^th massacres, which involved torture, gang rape, baby-murder, and the kidnapping of young and old, was arguably one of the most evil and shocking acts of brutality committed against civilians in history. How grotesque that I can only confidently say “one of”. Despite not living anywhere near the scene, and not having any family or friends affected by the acts, I’ve found myself thinking about it daily. It inspires a sense of anguish and horror: the fear of not being able to protect my own child from the sort of demonic person who would hurt or kill him; sympathy for those who suffered pain and sorrow the likes of which nobody should even have to imagine. Clearly, my reaction is an emotional one; I do not expect everyone else to react in the exact same manner. I would, however, expect every sane and decent person to acknowledge the evil, and to condemn it. I was wrong to expect this.

Instead, not only have we witnessed Muslims around the world hold raucous demonstrations in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and their various bloodthirsty peers, so too has the cossetted Kafir of the West clamoured to express his approval for some of the worst crimes ever committed against his fellow man. I should not be shocked. This is surely one of the expected and logical steps on the road of identity politics, or the progressive woke ideology. Normally the phrase would be “the road to”, but as the model itself can never have an end goal, I prefer to say: “road of”. The ideology relies on having a wicked oppressor to oust and crush, no matter the cost or destruction. As it so depends on there being an “oppressor”, one will always be designated. Quick, a new target. Rinse and repeat.

The model of oppressor/oppressed has been sloppily but heartily applied to Israel and the Palestinians, and used to justify hideous and barbaric acts, even against the most defenceless and innocent. It has also been used to casually sweep those acts under the international carpet, as so many people demand ceasefire, demand support for the Palestinians, demand that Israel be willing to negotiate with the terrorist-group-cum-governing-body that so brutalised their civilians, and proudly declared its intention to do so again and again. Hamas was founded on three pillars: charity, brotherhood, and the eradication of Israel. One of those things seems to be higher on the agenda than others, although I’m sure they can put on a mean bake-sale from time to time.

This oppressor/oppressed model is, unsurprisingly, the purview of the left. The people who have spent so many years calling everyone and everything a nazi are now basically ok with actual pogroms. Facts must be bent to suit their model. People must be reduced to two dimensional characters to be advanced or bumped off in a shaky plotline. What I found more surprising still, was the dovetailing right-wing dismissal of Israeli pain. Again, I don’t believe that everybody needs to have an emotional response. There is a perfectly good stoic argument of not involving yourself in any manner in somebody else’s pain. What I do take issue with, however, is taking pleasure in that pain.

I’ve seen two main excuses from the right, normally my side of the aisle (although I try to avoid committing to any particular political label), for the response.

One is simply: Jews bad. It’s their fault, therefore I don’t care, or actively think it’s a funny bit of meme material.

The second: nothing is real. Nothing can be trusted, except possibly my discord server. Israel is supported by the US, I hate globohomo, and Israel has committed bad acts before. Therefore, nothing any Israeli says can be trusted, not even if it’s corroborated by videos and photos provided by the perpetrators themselves.

The first argument: fine. I don’t care if you don’t like Jews. I don’t care if you do. It’s not my business, and frankly I’m ambivalent. I’ve held views that have formerly been referred to as antisemitic (so often by those now cheering Jewish misery and expecting them to give up defending themselves). I think telling a non-Jewish actor not to play a Jew is bollocks, and I don’t think it’s an unforgivable sin to observe that Jews are overrepresented in banking and media.

Firstly, actors should act. Secondly, while there may well be some nepotism involved, Jewish people are stereotyped as being financially shrewd and excellent at storytelling for a reason. I do not think that every industry needs to have a perfectly even representation of ethnicities as this ignores choice and skillsets. I do not view it as some big conspiracy, much like I do not believe that 19^th and 20^th century England bore witness to a Quaker conspiracy to rule the world of confectionary. Quakers, like the Jews in various times and places, found themselves working within particular constraints. Excluded from certain areas of society, whether through self-exclusion or otherwise, they focused on what they were good at. We have Rowntree’s, Cadbury’s, and Fry’s confectionary brands to show for it.

The second argument: This is much the same argument that emerged around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Governments lie. The Ukrainian authorities are known for their corruption. The first casualty of war is truth. All perfectly reasonable arguments, in my opinion. Having said that, I still remember the shock of seeing Anarchists and Libertarians, whose main concern in life is individual liberty and to restrict or dismantle government altogether, suddenly rootin’ for Putin. I was quite amazed at how many liberty-minded rebels suddenly threw their lot in with the autocratic ruler who has the unfortunate habit of working with so many clumsy chaps who simply cannot be trusted around open windows.

I heard plenty of fair points. The Ghost of Kiev was nonsense. The sudden overnight adoption of “Keev” was pretentious virtue-signalling, or perhaps “knowledge-signalling” would fit better. And should the West fund somebody else’s war? Even if that means simply prolonging the inevitable and resulting in more deaths? What I did not agree with, however, was the knee-jerk response. It made me think of a new horseshoe effect, an NPC-horseshoe instead of a political horseshoe.

I will not be the NPC -> I will oppose the NPC view -> I am now the Anti-NPC

I am not writing this from a place of moral or logical perfection, more from a place of worry. I have recently found my own sense of humanity slipping at times and have had to force myself to really consider my own positions and the death and destruction that would accompany them. A week or two after the October 7^th massacre, I realised that while I could clearly picture the fear and pain of the targeted Israeli children and families, the bodies of Palestinian children lay firmly behind a grey wall in my head. The Palestinian children are no less innocent, no less undeserving of chaos and death.

Possibly this mental gap was because I subconsciously understood their deaths to be “collateral damage” rather than the specific goal of their killers. And yes, I felt sick just writing that phrase. How callous. It could also be that my sympathy for Israel and the position the country is now in overrode some of my sympathy for the people governed by the terrorists. While people who have not been victimised by Hamas may find it easy to call for a ceasefire and the end to a horrific war that has already claimed the lives of 9000 Palestinians (and I don’t know if that number is civilians-only or if it includes combatants), Hamas will keep torturing and murdering Israelis until there is no Israel left. Hamas have also cleverly built their underground network beneath the feet of civilians, the same civilians they told to disregard Israel’s evacuation order. They are happy to use their people as human shields. Arab and Western protestors seem happy to call out Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians, but not the fact that Hamas have deliberately placed them in harm’s way. I wonder if this is another face of racism: we can’t blame the savage brown people for their human sacrifice, but those whites (or are they white-adjacent? It seems to change dependant on mood..) should be expected to uphold all rules of decency, even after their people have been brutalised.

There is no happy ending to this. It terrifies me to see so many people in the UK, as well as across the West, cheering on Israel’s destruction, whether directly or by demanding they lay down their arms and take the genocide that Hamas is so eager to complete. Every day I pray to a God I don’t believe will intervene (if there was ever to be an intervention, surely it would have been prior to the 7^th?). I pray for protection for the children in harm’s way in particular, and for the safe release of the hostages that Hamas so cruelly took. Even imagining those hostages, including babies as young as 9 months, makes me feel wretched. I cannot imagine the misery and fear they have experienced, or that of their loved ones. I hope and pray for a speedy resolution to the war, and for a liveable future for Israel and for the remaining Palestinians. What that could look like, I can’t even imagine right now. Most of all, I find myself praying for people’s sense of humanity to remain intact – mine included. It is such an easy thing to lose, yet such an important thing to hold dear.