Not a Tragedy

Israel, Hamas, and the Real World

Dear Friends,

It was not a “tragedy.” Stop it. A “tragedy” is impersonal. It is a misfortune that befalls you. The word leaves completely ambiguous whether there is any particular causation or blame to be assigned. And that is why a great many people like the word; it allows them to express some modicum of sympathy so as to remain welcome in polite society without actually having to assign blame to those responsible.

The citizens of Israel are not victims of a tragedy. They are victims of an atrocity. [Atrocity: noun, “an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury.”] That’s the word. This was not a natural disaster, an impersonal misfortune. This was the unprovoked wanton slaughter of innocents.

Anyone who has any difficulty whatsoever saying that is a person who lacks basic moral clarity. If you are following any “influencers” who suddenly seem to have lost their voice at this moment (somebody might want to call in a welfare check on Candace Owens), you really need to fire them as your “influencer.” Same with anybody who leads with some variation of “these things are complicated.” The Christian Nationalist guys haven’t had much if anything to say. Stephen Wolfe did re-post a Tweet complaining that some unnamed “they” hate Palestinians and “revel in slaughter”—meaning, Israel’s response to these attacks. As I’ve suspected, the “No Enemies To The Right” so-called “principle” does, in fact, provide a safe haven for antisemites.

More broadly than those little Christian backwaters, this is what happens when you indoctrinate a populace for decades in the art of postmodern critical theory; the only lenses it has available through which to see the world is “oppressors” and “oppressed,” “privileged” and “downtrodden.” Mix into that cocktail a demonic sort of antisemitism that hates and blames Jews for every undesirable thing, and you get … Hamas and, apparently, the students of Harvard University.