Good morning, my friend. This one is heavy and I say that for you to decide whether you need to bookmark this for a later read. I also want to quote from Matthew 6:34 to set the stage, “Do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
I’ve found a lot of comfort in scripture over the past few weeks where I couldn’t find it anywhere else. Take care of your loved ones and never lose sight of what is truly important in this world and the next.
Here’s the rundown:
One Thing: Be an ally
Gut Check: This isn’t a ‘Jew Thing’, it’s a You Thing
In Your Free Time
One Thing
Send a message of love to a Jewish friend today and check in on them. Antisemitism is on full display all over the world. It’s a scary time for our Jewish brothers and sisters to practice their faith out in the open and, worse still, be targeted as an ethnic group because of blind hatred.
Gut Check: Progressive Double-Speak
I have a lot of well-meaning Democratic friends who were up in arms over the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, they were appalled at the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rallied to help the displaced Afghanis and Ukrainians. They lamented the war crimes committed at the hands of the Taliban and Russian armies against civilians—women and children alike. War crimes are war crimes. And yet I have been devastated to find out they are silent about war crimes committed against Israeli civilians on October 7th and the ongoing terror of the hundreds more women and children kidnapped and being held hostage today. Their silence is violence. We are witnessing actual “right-wing violence” in Gaza and Israel in real-time: Ultra-religious zealotry of the conservative Islamic extremist flavor that hates and I mean hates with a passion that wants to kill every last Jew that stands in their way to political domination. It’s not good enough for Hamas to live next to Israel—Hamas has full autonomy over Gaza. No, they want, “The river to the sea.”
I keep hearing apologists say that Palestine is “occupied by Israel” so I did some research, listened to hours of talks, and read literature on both sides of this issue — the Palestine vs Israel issue that is. I really do feel for the Palestinian-identified people in Gaza and the West Bank. I understand that life is challenging and that checkpoints can keep families and loved ones apart indefinitely in the name of security for Israeli officials. I have learned how challenging it is to run a business in these areas due to Israeli import controls. I understand the reality that poor water and electricity access causes all sorts of logistical challenges for every Palestinian. I do not want to downplay that struggle and that reality of feeling oppressed, rightfully so. What I do question is why Israel is blamed for that reality and not the political leaders of Gaza. Hamas is occupying Gaza. Hamas is oppressing the Palestinians.
Hamas-controlled Gaza has received billions of dollars in aid since Israel's unilateral disengagement from the area in 2005. What has the elected Hamas leadership done with its territory since? It’s dismembered water pipes through Gaza to use for missiles to target Israelis. Hamas has blown billions in humanitarian aid meant for Palestinians to line Hamas’ leader’s pockets and devise plan after plan to shoot rockets indiscriminately into Israeli territory (also a war crime) for the past three decades. They could have invested in infrastructure, aqueducts, sewage, electricity, green energy, and tourism, but they decided naw let’s go with genocide that suits our goals better. Meanwhile, we hear about the terrible, no-good Israelis that are laying siege to Gaza after being terrorized by them—cutting off their water and electricity. This begs the question: Why was another country supplying all these things in the first place if they were “occupiers” when we know they left in 2005? That’s like saying Canada is cutting off the water and electricity to America if we stopped supplying and maintaining our own electrical grid—what?
Every country has a right to protect itself, Israel is no different. The absolute barbarianism we saw in the attack against Israeli civilians on October 7th is beyond the pale. A legitimate country striking back at terrorists using precise military attacks on enemy military targets is not a war crime by Geneva Convention standards, even if innocent civilians are injured in the process. In fact, Israel is the only actor in this sordid mess that seems to give any thought to innocent civilians. Israel is saying, “Hey civilians in this area, GTFO we are about to strike, sorry your leaders care so little for you that they would use hospitals and daycares as their weapons repos.”
Meanwhile, we have Hamas soldiers raping minors, killing children in front of their parents, parents in front of their toddlers, beheading babies, cutting open pregnant women, stabbing their unborn children in front of them then shooting them in the head. Whole families were found burnt in their homes embracing each other, their skeletons fused—not caused by a bomb, but by a terrorist who listened to their screams and found joy in it while throwing gasoline onto the fire. And the “Progressive Democrats” want to tell me I’m the oppressor? They want to tell me I’m the Nazi? I’m a colonizer? To that I say, you are an insane person with whom I will never be able to have a conversation.
This brings me to the intersectional crowd who has romanticized the idea of the oppressor vs the oppressed dynamic.
This ideology has done the work to condition millions of educated and “progressive” people into believing murder is justified if it’s in the name of restorative justice, decolonization, or economic freedom—but all that really means is it’s ok to kill someone if they are inconvenient to your political ends. It’s only ever been about capturing more power, after all, that’s the whole point of amassing a coalition. How could that possibly go sideways, say if Donald Trump is the President-Elect roughly a year from now? The world is a powder keg right now and they are just stoking the fire!
Climate Justice for Gaza? Environmentalists are at it again and thank goodness we have them because do you think handmade pipe bombs are made with sustainable materials? Do you think burning the bodies of Jewish women and children is carbon neutral—certainly not if they are using petrol as accelerants! I sure hope they bought carbon credits to offset their emissions. You are either a complete moron or a monster if you think this movement results in anything other than more mass graves—God forbid you and I are among the bodies. It doesn’t stop with Jewish people, it extends to all the perceived colonizers whether or not you say the right progressive things and wear the right political monikers on your clothes. The French Revolution is a quick study in how all revolutions eat their own. You aren’t safe from a mad crowd intent on bringing restorative justice to bear. They don’t stop to ask you your pronouns, sexual preference, or political party—they certainly didn’t in Israel.
In a must read piece from The Free Press, This Is What ‘Decolonization’ Looks Like the author hits the mark,
All this is a good reminder that when people say something, they often mean it, and we should believe them, or at least take them seriously. Fancy-sounding academic jargon is not a curious intellectual exercise. Words make worlds.
Since the atrocities the world witnessed on October 7th, images I will never be able to forget courtesy of Hamas terrorists who proudly live-streamed their evil rampage, I’ve seen a curious oddity that at face value doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, there is the emergence of the skeptics. They say this never happened, or it did happen but it wasn’t as bad as the Israeli and Zionist media are reporting, or it did happen but it wasn’t Hamas—the Israelis did this to themselves to get sympathy from the rest of the world so they could kill Palestinians. At the same time, mass protests continue across the globe in solidarity with Palestine and the Hamas-led resistance.
Which is it? Was this a justified killing or was this all make-believe propaganda? The throughline here is pretty much excuse-making on behalf of antisemitism.
Now, I can draw a stark distinction between Hamas and secular Palestinians, the faithful Muslim community therein, or those of any other faith. It’s an easy thing to do. What I’m having difficulty processing right now is how the Progressive Left can’t draw that distinction for themselves, and it makes me wonder “how can’t they” or “why won’t they?” They are very quick to slap islamophobia accusations on pretty reasonable questions, which is not a surprising tactic as that is their M.O. but the brazenness takes my breath away.
Here’s a new opinion piece that dropped last night, Stop Asking Muslims to Condemn Hamas:
So why are we asking random Muslims (and even Jews for that matter) to condemn something we all know deep down their faiths would never condone?
It's the very premise of this question that I personally find offensive, which all Muslims and Jews should too. If condemnation is something that must be sought out, consider posing the question to the leadership of Hamas.
To be clear I think everyone should condemn Hamas, but I’m not asking anyone to do so. The author poses a philosophical question more than anything here. Why should anyone have to condone evil ever? Isn’t evil obvious? Well, unfortunately, we live in a world where people aren’t born with an inherent propensity to do good or to recognize their evil deeds as anything other than justified. If my children were left to their own devices they would beat each other bloody senseless over the last cakepop. So yes, I think it’s important that the collective society (our leaders at least) condemn particularly heinous crimes to set the tone for what’s acceptable behavior, lest our society crumbles into violence against every perceived slight.
The reason why those of us are *thinking* ‘where are all the outraged crowds protesting against Hamas?’ is because we have not seen them. Instead, we are seeing thousands of protest signs that read:
“Resistance is not terrorism. Free Palestine.”
“By any means necessary.”
“Keep the world clean.” (with the image of the Star of David in a trash bin)
“Resistance against occupation is a human right.”
“We can’t wait for the Caliphate.”
“Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.”
“Long live Palestinian freedom fighters.”
“Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”
Again, I’m not asking anyone to condemn Hamas. All I’m saying is it’s pretty obvious what’s happening when the same people who have been policing everyone else’s words or silence over the past decade are now demanding a reprieve for their own. Condemnation of evil by faithful people of Muslim, Jewish, or Christian backgrounds does sound ridiculous because it is almost a moot point. The problem arises when we are dealing with millions of people whose religion is politics or whose faith is perverted by hatred, the pursuit of power, or vengeance.
I write and I podcast, and I’ve been on the record in saying Black lives do matter, women should be treated with equal dignity and given the same opportunities as men, and raping women is very bad. BLM, TimesUp, #MeToo—all things my Christian faith unequivocally dictates my support. But I think a lot of us missed the memo where we were allowed to be offended at being asked to condemn racism, discrimination, and sexual violence in the first place.
We don’t have goldfish brains. A lot of people have exposed themselves. I’m not calling you out unless you are an elected official or a public figure—fair game. But I know that I see you and it makes me very sad.
We cannot allow political ideologies or movements to fan the flames of hatred to dehumanize groups of people based on their ethnic or religious backgrounds. All people are human. No human is any more or less than another. There are innocent mothers and fathers in Israel and Gaza tonight who are terrified for their children’s safety. Bring it back to the humanity of the people caught in the crossfire of terrorists. I pray for peace and justice.
Only God can know the intentions of our hearts and those of our enemies. But my God also instructed me to love my enemy as myself. That’s where I’m focusing my attention because it’s painful to conceptualize that level of love and forgiveness when all I feel is disgust and anger at the cruelty of what’s going on.
In Your Free Time
To watch:
To read:
IDF: What Happened in the October 7th Massacre?
Avi Bell & Erielle Davidson: How Hamas Exploits Foreign Aid
Noah Rothman: Why Do So Many Young People Support Hamas?
Seth Mandel: The People Who Tear Down the Posters
Phyllis Chesler: Response to Hamas horror shows the feminist movement has lost its moral compass
Monica Osborne: Hamas Is Reportedly Using Rape as Warfare. Where Are the Feminists?
Michael Oren: A War Against the Jews
John Podhoretz: The Story of an Israeli at War
Matthew Continetti: Joe Biden and the Anti-Semitic Left
To Listen:
Commentary Podcast, feat. Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel's envoy for combatting global anti-Semitism
Call Me Back, Dan Senor, feat. Jonathan Schanzer: “The History of Hamas, and its likely grim future”
Honestly, Bari Weiss: Bring Back My Children: An Israeli Mother's Plea
Call Me Back, Dan Senor, feat. Dr. Matthew Levitt: A Brief History of Hezbollah
The Re-Education with Eli Lake, feat. Leon Wieseltier: The Wretched of the Campus
Thank you for reading all the way through. It took me a very long time to write and rewrite this post. I want to express my sincere condolences to anyone reading who has lost a loved one as a result of the October Massacre. My heart is heavy for all Jewish people in these scary times. I promise I will not tolerate antisemitism in any form and I will teach my children to do the same. Never again is an ongoing effort and we will be on the right side of history—against intolerance, religious bigotry, and evil.
God bless,
Sarah
The SLiP will return in two weeks. See you then.