Forty deceased babies were found this morning as journalists and IDF soldiers assessed scenes that are difficult for the human brain to hold in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which has been all but destroyed, homes set on fire. Some of the babies had been decapitated, some burned. The terrorists filmed videos of themselves shooting the dogs. They shot people’s dogs.
More stories emerged and videos of kids who ran from the SuperNova music festival playing dead in bomb shelters that they used as hiding places from the Hamas terrorists. Kids who were hiding under dead bodies for up to 7-8 hours waiting for rescuers. Text chains have been published of their pleas for help to friends. Of updates of their status quo. Unthinkable.
The evil is unimaginable. It is worse than we could ever have anticipated. And it keeps getting worse. I was sent a video tonight of a woman who was burned alive, her legs splayed open, lying naked on the ground. I threw up.
This is not the experience that the contrarian people who I chose to challenge and converse with online this morning are having. These are people who have not spent the past five days watching the worst nightmares of their family’s pasts come back to life. The dissonance is astonishing. When I challenged them on their one-sided social media performance posts I wound up walking away from the conversations, noticing a total lack of willing level playing field. The responses I was receiving were unintelligible or self-interested. They weren’t rooted in intellect or knowledge, but in emotion. An emotional pull to Gaza. An emotional pull away from Israel, from Jewish people. But one of these things is not like the other.
Hamas terrorized civilians with crimes against humanity, and now Israel is responding.
Peope who talk with many marbles in their mouths, the kinds of people who use big words and think what they’re told to think, parroting buzzwords like heartless androids, are struggling with condemning the deaths and beheadings of the babies. They struggle because they believe antisemitic tropes. The antisemitism is running so deep in their veins that they don’t themselves even recognize it when they say “yes, but.”
Jeremy Bowen of the BBC this morning was reporting from the kibbutz. He was shown the body of a woman covered in a purple garment. He was told she was beheaded. But afterwards he then thought it necessary to mention on air that he himself didn’t lift the garment to check if the army officer had told the truth. He didn’t himself make sure that her head was missing. So maybe it somehow wasn’t.
So many people simply don’t believe us. And they don’t believe us because they have antisemitic bias. Jews are sneaky! Jews lie! Prove it, you deceitful Jews!
They beheaded babies and burned them. Do you have enough “proof” yet?
There are times in history where you have to draw a red line. And this is one of them. You are either with us or you’re with the people who beheaded babies. And in the age of Instagram it’s been pretty useful to understand which people are in any way decent. I mean, silence is complicit, right? Didn’t they ram that down our throats for years?
As today’s horrors were revealed, and new death tolls, the Belfast Telegraph posted its own story about pro-Palestinian protestors placing an enormous Palestinian flag on a mountain, viewable from the sky. They reported:
“Irish Repulicans have watched with admiration as Palestinians bravely stood up against all odds and launched ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’, an offensive against the Israeli war machine,” he said. “We salute the martyrs who have selflessly paid the supreme sacrifice while resisting the occupiers over the past few days. Their bravery and resilience is inspiring for Revlotionary anti-imperlialists around the world, ourselves included.”
That’s a helluva giant world salad to say - bravo for killing those dirty Jews.
And today many Jewish people hit a breaking point; an indescribable frustration as a horrific reality was met with responses of insanity. This here from Trudy Crow (@BellyUp50) is what most people on the internet sounded like:
Jewish people were faced with this external madness and an interal outpouring of personal anguish, rejection, disappointment and betrayal by our surrounding communities. Several friends called this morning in floods of tears, the disilliusionment as raw as a proverbial knife to the chest, such was the stark realization that people they’ve called family and friends for life are either justifying the killing of our own, or are remaining deathly silent. If this was 1939…
And if this was 1939 we would know which side Ryna at NYU Law would be on. Hi y’all, she writes:
Thankfully there were consequences for Ryna today, and she is no longer going to be employed by the law firm who had promised her a job upon graduation.
Jewish people kept messaging me in despair all afternoon at the hypocrisy of the social justice campaigns that they’ve bent over backwards to support for years, trying to see eye-to-eye with the differences of others. They sent me this - posts from BLM in support of “Palestine” as a direct response to the atrocities against Israelis this weekend. BLM supports the beheading of babies:
I was not remotely surprised by this. I was surprised that my fellow Jews were surprised, still clinging on to a desperate need to fit in at parties that have never invited us. I’m not happy about the mess of all this. But there’s some kind of odd validation in knowing that what I said x amount of years ago when I blankly called out the antisemitic cancer that was written in black and white into the actual manifesto of BLM, and described that the BLM organization itself was an antisemitic organization, with questionable funding, was accurate. I was right. I am sorry that it took so many of you this long to catch up. It’s OK. I forgive you for calling me a racist.
Many Jewish people asked me today as they often do about what to say to these gaslighting shits. And other people in their lives who are taking this moment of horror to question them about anything from The Nakba and 1967 and 1973 to the Oslo Accords and Camp David, open air prisons, apartheid and THE OCCUPATION, blah blah blah blah blah. Urging an intellectual debate because, didn’t you know, they know their history and they want to know if you know it! And I gave them advice unlike advice I’ve given before as an advocate. I said: Tell them to fuck off.
And on that note, to all the people who posted today about “the suffering of children worldwide”, please. I have never seen more attempts by more sponge brains to avoid using the words Jewish or Israel.
Apart from President Joe Biden, who made a heart-rendering address. I cried. I finally succumbed to my own moment of fear watching this. Because it was surreal. So surreal to know that a series of events not seen since the Holocaust is here upon us. The denial. The silence. The bystanders. The justifications. The ignorance. The hatred; pure hatred and mistrust of the Jewish people. It’s what I have feared for years and never wanted to believe was true. But my belief it was true was why I was called to do this work. It’s why I have never regretted it. It is why I, and all of us, will not break in the face of it. We are unbreakable.
Some housework:
Israel reported today that Hamas terrorists my start posting photos and videos of hostages on all social media platforms to warn against attacking them further. The Israeli government has asked the following:
1. Do not share these videos or photos; they are part of a psychological warfare against Israel and against you.
2. Urge your children to delete Instagram, Facebook and TikTok from their phones to prevent them from watching them; they will be terrifying.
Everyone, try to get some sleep. I know it’s hard. This is not going to be over any time soon.
Your dispatches are the best in the world. Please don't stop, ever.
“Irish Repulicans have watched with admiration as Palestinians bravely stood up against all odds and launched ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’, an offensive against the Israeli war machine,” he said. “We salute the martyrs who have selflessly paid the supreme sacrifice while resisting the occupiers over the past few days. Their bravery and resilience is inspiring"..... This reporter does not speak for all Irish people. As we've seen over the last few days pro Palestine protests have been happening in a number of countries around the world and yes there's a pro Palestine community here too.... but not all Irish Repulicans are 'watching in admiration'', not all Irish people support what's happening. I'm disgusted by his remarks. #IStandWithIsrael 🇮🇱