Words Matter

Hate is the oxygen for terror groups like Hamas

How many have seen the video clip of a crowd chanting “Gas the Jews" and “Fuck the Jews”?

Where do you think that frenzied crowd marched? Tehran? Damascus?

No. That was last night outside the world-famous opera house in Sydney, Australia.

Words matter. They provoke and incite. In too many instances they are used to dehumanize Jews so that they become easier and more susceptible targets of violence. You do not have to be Jewish to be horrified at the savagery of the Hamas terror attack against Israel. I am not Jewish. Still, I have trouble getting the images of horror out of my mind. Any human should be repelled by the barbarity that Hamas deployed against women, children, the elderly, and disabled.

And, possibly because I am a writer, I find it distressing that words are used as an additional weapon, even after the brutality has been shown in heart-rendering videos of people pleading in vain for their lives.

Under the guise of taking to the streets around the globe to show solidarity for Palestine, tens of thousands instead engaged in a frenzy of hatred about Jews and Israel. Their condemnation was not reserved for the Hamas terrorists who carried out the war crimes, but rather the ire of many in the crowds was directed to the victims. It was Israel, and Jews, that were to blame. The crowds on the street echoed the position of the Qatari Foreign Ministry, which declared on the first day of the terror attack, that it “holds Israel solely responsible.” It was not surprising to hear the vitriol and antisemitism at rallies in Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran. Yet, some of the vilest hatred, came in Western cities.

Cars filled with people flying Palestinian flags and celebrating the Hamas attacks drove through London. In Berlin, Arabs passed out pastries in praise of the terror. “Resistance is not terrorism” was the dominant sign in San Francisco’s “Free Palestine” march.

In Manchester, UK, the president of “Friends of Palestine,” told reporters how “We are full of pride, we are full of joy for what has happened.”

In The Hague and Rotterdam, demonstrators chanted that Hamas’s terrorism was “self-defense against Zionists and imperialists.” It was Israel, they shouted, that was the “terrorist state.”

Rallies to celebrate the Hamas attack took place in Toronto, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, New York, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles and a couple of dozen others, as well as university campuses. It is only a sampling of the chilling outpouring of hatred I’ve seen on social media in the last couple of days.

There was no internet during the Nazi mass murder of European Jews during World War II. The murderers did not post trophy videos of the slaughter for all the world to see. If social media had existed during World War II, would there have been antisemites around the globe who would have taken to the streets to cheer on those running the gas chamber at Auschwitz? Would they have glorified the bloody executions by Nazi mobile killing squads? Maybe so. It is nice to think we are all created equal, and at times like this, it is evident that our moral compasses often diverge in irreconcilable ways.

For those who cannot condemn wholeheartedly the horror of the terrorism by Hamas, please unsubscribe from my Substack, unfollow me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. I do not want your poison and I will not tolerate your indulgence in hate.