HEY PRO-PAL ACTIVISTS: NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU THINK

WHY WOULD ISRAEL (OR ANYONE ELSE) CARE WHAT COMES OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE DEMONSTRATED THEY DON’T CARE WHETHER JEWS LIVE OR DIE?

Don’t bother. No one cares.

Get this: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a problem with the Israeli intelligence operation that exploded the pagers of Hezbollah terrorist leaders.

“This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict,” the “Squad” member and Democratic congressmember wrote on X.

I could have picked from thousands of examples of crazed condemnations after the jawdroppingly brilliant bursting beeper operation, but AOC is ideal for a number of reasons.

For one thing, she is the poster child for not learning to stay in your lane. At the very start of her career, she was humiliated on a PBS interview program when she was challenged on her anti-Israel positions and demonstrated that she had no idea what she was talking about.

As many (if not most) “pro-Palestinian” activists will do if challenged, she retrenched behind the defense, “I’m not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.” (It’s worth watching if only to reassure yourself that your most cringe-inducing personal memory amounts to nothing in comparison.)

Anyone who has engaged with a “pro-Palestinian” activist for more than a few minutes has had one of these AOC moments. They make “Palestine” the centerpoint of their foreign policy and activism, rave like an authority then, with the slightest challenge, declare, Well, y’know, I dunno, I just …

Idiot activists are not really my point today (although they are a running theme in my writings). The larger issue is this: Why would any Israeli, or Jew (or anyone who cares whether Israelis and Jews live or die) care what AOC or, really, anyone else, thinks?

I’m not talking about celebrities in politics, either. AOC is a celebrity. But she is also an elected official. This is not like some bubble gum pop singer endorsing for president. Elected officials have not just a right to engage but an obligation. They also, though, have an even greater obligation to know WTF they’re talking about.

It’s fun to make fun of stupid activists. But, in the end, it’s not about their knowledge. It’s about their values, their basic humanity. Even if they were informed, even if they had a PhD in Middle Eastern studies, my larger point is: No one who matters should care what they think.

Here’s why:

When Israel uses conventional warfare, even the pinpointed, meticulous strategies for urban warfare Israel has developed to minimize casualties in places like Gaza, it is accused of “shooting fish in a barrel.”

When they use what is arguably the world’s most narrowly targeted method of taking out top leaders in a genocidal terrorist movement, they are accused of violating international humanitarian law and undermining US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.

Right. Nothing Israel ever does will be right or justified.

What we often hear from politicians across the democratic world are assurance that “Israel has a right to defend itself” — until it actually does. And then it is (Choose 1 or all): “Israel is shooting fish in a barrel”; “Israel is violating international law”; “Israel is fomenting a wider conflict”; “Israel is dropping firebreathing dragons on babies”; “Israel is blah blah blah” …

All of this is to acknowledge that, to people like AOC and the marching millions, there is nothing Israel can legitimately do to protect its civilians from terrorism.

So, the bigger issue is: Who cares what they say?

The world has demonstrably shown an almost complete lack of empathy to Israel’s situation and, indeed, an almost total indifference to the killing of Jews.

This isn’t a new thing. This is not only since October 7. It is not only since Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. It is not only since 1948. This has been going on for thousands of years.

Most notably, the world yawned while six million Jews were murdered. The evidence is irrefutable: The world doesn’t care when Jews are killed. 

By and large, with a few shining exceptions, people are more concerned about Hezbollah terrorists getting a hurtful page than they are about kidnapped Jewish babies, beheaded Jewish families, immolated Jewish seniors and mass murdered Jewish young adults at a rave.

Why would anyone care what people with these sorts of values say about Israel? (Or about anything?)

I would completely understand if the Jewish state, and the Jewish people more broadly, responded to global outrage today with a back of the hand dismissal. The fact that Israelis and Jews actually do care what the world thinks about that country’s behavior is proof of a level of benevolence that I sure as hell would not exhibit if my people had been through what Jews have experienced at the hands of the world.

That aside, I guess this is what grates me the most: The idea that these snotnosed bags of tattoo ink on university campuses, the self-righteous, privileged diplomats at the United Nations, or the self-satisfied, bloviating columnists and commentators from seemingly all points on the political, geographic and cable news spectrum think that their opinions matter.

I know, I know. Who am I to talk? But, I guess, that is exactly my point. My opinion does matter, because the Jewish people deserve and need reasonable, humanitarian allies in the world so that it is not only Jewish people standing for the right of Jewish people to not be murdered. My opinions matter because I actually appreciate why Israel has to defend itself from genocidal monsters. And since most of my erstwhile friends on the left don’t seem moved to do so — since some of them actually celebrate October 7 and call for more attempted genocide while chanting “End the genocide” — well, I guess it puts a burden on me to speak up and let people know that there is at least one gay, leftwing, non-Jewish activist who can still tell right from wrong, FFS.

It is profoundly narcissistic for people to think that Israel should listen to the voices and opinions of those whose every word and deed demonstrate that they do not care whether Israelis (and Jews) live or die. And, just to put the cherry of self-righteousness on the sundae of egotistical smugness, they switch the indignation apparatus to max when Israel does not respond immediately and completely to their demands for Israeli surrender.

And, do we really need to make this disclaimer again?: It’s not as though these people can legitimately hide behind the argument that they care about Palestinian lives. Though their concern for the lives of (figuratively and now literally) blood-soaked Hezbollah terrorists is particularly intriguing.

They do not actually demonstrate any genuine “pro-Palestinian” inclinations. Nothing they do advances the well-being of Palestinians. On the contrary, overseas activists advance an intolerant, maximalist ideology that precludes the coexistence that is the prerequisite to peace and Palestinian self-determination. Worse, overseas activists effectively endorse the Hamas strategy and reward them every time Palestinians die.

The deliberate Hamas strategy maximizes dead Palestinians so that “pro-Palestinians” overseas will count up the dead and blame Israel. So, while we should disregard any advice they have for Israelis, we should be just as dismissive about anything they have to say about Palestinians. They have demonstrated about the same amount of concern for dead Palestinians as they have for dead Israelis.

That’s their problem.

Here’s mine: The world — especially fauxgressives like AOC — are the ideological descendants of the American isolationists who, in the name of “peace” wanted to give Hitler a free hand. They are the moral progeny of the Good Friday pogromists. They have the humanitarian pedigree of the bystanders at the worst moments in Jewish history. They are the last people Jews (or anyone else) should listen to when it comes to talk of right and wrong.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the very people who chant “By any means necessary” change their tune diametrically when it comes to beheadings, immolations, mass rape and attempted genocide of Jews. When the moment comes for the victims to defend themselves, the tune changes to “By no means at all.”

Say it loud to these people: No one who matters cares what you think.