The Intifada Revolution will be Instagrammed
To be antiwar, one must actually oppose the war, not encourage it to be fought on your own streets by clueless youngsters.
As I wrote when it came to the UCLA riots , it doesn’t matter how cathartic it is to see protesters roughed up, it’s still illegal and wrong. It is immaterial whether one finds the woman who was assaulted for protesting in Crown Heights sympathetic, those that committed the act are going to be investigated, prosecuted, and in some cases deported for what they did. Tonight, probably after you’ve already received this, there is the potential to be another conflagratian between the protesters and the neighbourhood’s residents. Thankfully Vaad Hakohol, the neighbourhood’s Jewish community board, has issued directives to residents not to engage with protesters as have the Shomrim security service and other CH institutions. I rarely have the occasion to praise any institutional body so I’ll use the opportunity today, but I hope for their sake that the teen students at CH yeshivot (Torah academies) and everyone else heed these instructions and not ruin their lives or someone else’s through some act of foolishness. The fate of Israel or Palestine will not be determined in Brooklyn, and it is unfair to the people of Crown Heights whether they’re Jewish, Caribbean or any other persuasion to turn it into a battlefield.
As for the other side, the pro-Palestine movement and the rest of the left activist sector in America see the bringing of violence from Gaza and the rest of the Middle East to the United States as desirable. It is part of their six decade long cosplay with radical chic, a common fantasy of the comfortable classes of all backgrounds seeking meaning in their lives. Their slogans have included such brainless refrains as “glory to the martyrs!” and “Globalise the Intifada”, and they are motivated by the delusional belief that their efforts will lead to victory or relieve the misery of the Palestinian people. Whatever your thoughts on the conflict, the protests clearly haven’t done that. In fact, I often argue with a friend of mine who is very active in the side of pro-Israel activism that the era of effective protest politics on foreign policy issues is probably behind us, and therefore it is a waste of time to protest or counterprotest. The issue of whether one side or the other is correct is beside the point, Americans have been completely jaded by the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots and other similar protest movements and have become desensitised.
Reading my old articles on this topic, I’ve tried to remain consistent. Before October 7, 2023 I had a very strong respect for Glenn Greenwald and his free speech stance (which I still support) regarding all points of view, but I no longer have respect for the rest of the “anti-war” and “anti-imperialist” camp. One cannot be anti-war if he supports one of the belligerents, and they clearly support and justify the Palestinian armed efforts against Israel, both before and since October 7 as this 2018 interview between Aaron Maté and Norman Finkelstein explicitly stated.
Earlier in 2023 I wrote an article about a similar phenomenon with the “antiwar” movement concerning Russia and Ukraine. In February a few hundred people including former congressmen Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Tulsi Gabbard gathered by the Lincoln Memorial to protest that war. Why with those three titans of peace activism in attendance was it such a pathetic failure drawing far less than the Palestine protests? I would argue part of their problem (to paraphrise rally speaker and failed protest expert Dave Smith) is because so many attendees were not truly anti-war but rather explicitly supported Russia, to the point where plenty of attendees were wearing the “Z” that is partisan to that side (see above). Similarly, the pro-Palestine movement is not about achieving a ceasefire and saving the lives of Palestinians. If it was, why are some of the same people like Jimmy Dore exalting Kneecap for yelling “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” or two years ago calling for the murder of Tory members of the British Parliament.
Shouldn’t be intuitive that one cannot support and oppose the same thing at the same time? Even John Kerry said in 2004, as incoherent as he sounded, that he “actually did vote for the $87 billion before I (Kerry) voted against it”, referring to the bill for funding the War in Iraq and meaning that he was claiming some degree of evolution on the issue. These full-time commentators don’t even do that, they want to stop the war and defeat Israel. I won’t accept that contradiction. None of these people have to live with the consequences of what happens in Gaza nor the spillover in Lebanon or in neighbourhoods like Crown Heights. If that is not speaking from “a position of privilege” I don’t know what is.