OF WITCH HUNTS AND WATERMELONS

Crybullies have oppression envy so play the victim card while terrorizing the real victims.

I’m so oppressed I need to use a stealth symbol because Palestinian solidarity is being “silenced”!

The people of Gaza are suffering catastrophically. This post does not diminish that reality, although critics will immorally and opportunistically argue that it does. And that is the topic of this post.

I’m not talking about Palestinians or the Palestinian liberation movement in Palestine here. I’m talking about overseas activists in Canada and elsewhere in the West. These are people — many of whom are among the most privileged in the world — experiencing oppression envy.

They are so desperate to identify themselves as downtrodden that they have invented an entirely imagined scenario in which they are the victims of a vast conspiracy to silence and oppress them.

Horrors happening halfway around the world have galvanized world attention — and activists are desperate to redirect some of that attention their way.

Palestinian activists in the West have demonstrated that their priority is not the well-being of Palestinians. If that were their goal, they would be calling for Hamas to surrender — which would end the dying tomorrow. 

Instead, they chant “From the river to the sea,” a maximalist mantra that eggs Palestinians on to expect nothing short of complete victory over the zios. These activists discourage Palestinians from compromising and making peace — the only thing that will ever “free Palestine” — and instead incite them to ever more violent acts. Then they tally up the dead Palestinians from the war Hamas started and declare their side the moral victors because they have the most casualties.

I keep saying: There are terms for people like these, but “pro-Palestinian” isn’t one of them.

Not only do they harm Palestinians. They go a step further and deflect from the problems facing Palestinians (and every other oppressed group in the world) in order to center their own grievances and make it all about themselves.

There are so many ways they do this. I’m going to focus on one: The wild conspiracy theory that overseas “allies” of Palestinians are being “silenced,” “cancelled,” “censored” and “muzzled.”

The best example is the hysteria around the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism. The fact that seven of the 11 examples accompanying the legally nonbinding definition reference the state of Israel is seen as “proof” that the whole thing is not about antisemitism at all but about squelching legit criticism of Israel.

Elsewhere, I have systematically debunked all the arguments made by these forces. I will simply say, in response to the idea that “pro-Palestinians” are being silenced, bahahahahaha.

Never in human history has one group, espousing any single cause, so usurped the global agenda. From the United Nations General Assembly to the telephone pole outside your house to every third or fourth thing on your social media feed to the conversation at last weekend’s dinner party to extremist hooligans hanging banners over highway overpasses, it is literally impossible to escape the incessant shrieking about Palestine.

Never mind the literally billions of people worldwide experiencing genocides, ethnic cleansings or countless other catastrophes. We don’t have time for them. Right now, it’s Palestine! Palestine! Palestine! and if you’re not on board with All Palestine All the Time you are a genocide-loving baby-killer. (Do I exaggerate? Not a jot, actually.)

The universal obsession with Palestine — you cannot escape it — eclipses every other issue on the planet and leads people to go to Jerry Seinfeld performances and heckle him because he’s not adequately on the Palestinian bandwagon.

This ubiquitous, totalitarian wall of noise attacking Israel (let’s not pretend this is about Palestinians) is somehow recast as silence.

Despite this unrestrained cacophony, activists like to pretend there is a giant campaign afoot to prevent ordinary people from hearing their message. So, based on the certainty that “any means necessary” is legitimate if the cause is just, they storm campuses, harass shoppers, terrorize Jews wherever they are and then pretend they are the ones whose voices are being oppressed.

It is probably safe to say that there has never been an issue or cause in human history more omnipresent than the so-called “pro-Palestinian” movement right now. I doubt that the domestic propaganda of the world wars in Britain and North America was as universal as what we see today. The “Keep calm and carry on” signs or the “Loose lips sink ships” posters were probably common in everyday life but I doubt that they were as inescapable as today’s “Free Palestine” stickers, graffiti, social media posts and assorted falderal that smacks us in the face every day.

These crybullies invent fake scenarios in which media companies, schools, university administrators, governments and The Powers That Be are conspiring to prevent the world from learning the Truth About Palestine.

The symbol of this conspiracy theory is the watermelon.

The watermelon emoji is a stealth sign of solidarity with Palestinians. The watermelon — green shell, red flesh and black seeds — shares the colors of the Palestinian flag. So it can be innocently shared on social media or as a lapel button in an environment where symbols of Palestinian solidarity can get you arrested, imprisoned and tortured. Because, of course, the “pro-Palestinian” activists are so beleaguered they need to hide their opinions. Again: Bahahahaha.

In the current climate of red-black-green ubiquity, the idea that Palestinian solidarity requires stealth symbols could be seen as paranoia verging on certifiable. But that’s not quite it.

They don’t actually feel so oppressed they need secret handshakes. They want to feel oppressed. So they invent a false scenario where they are forced to wear the watermelon instead of a Palestinian flag like they are courageous activists undaunted by the vast authoritarian plot to silence them. Like Donald Trump, they see themselves as victims of a witch hunt. The perpetrators insist they are the targets.

It has been called Selma envy. People so lacking in just causes they invent fake scenarios in which they are martyrs. The worst part of it is that the world is filled with just causes they could take up. Instead, they’ve chosen to make common cause with the most violent, homophobic, misogynistic, intolerant, xenophobic, authoritarian entities on the planet.

Meanwhile, you know who is actually hiding their identities? Jews.

Antisemitism is rampant and Jews literally risk physical danger in North America for wearing a Star of David, let alone an Israeli flag lapel pin. This is an environment created and nurtured by the poor victims of the Palestinian solidarity craze, who have created a climate of intolerance and violence in Canada and across the West.

The victimized activist conspiracy is blatantly antisemitic, based as it is on the idea that, no matter how much evidence there is to debunk their claims of “silencing,” the All Powerful Jooz are pulling the strings and preventing voices of Palestinian solidarity from being heard.

This is an old strategy. White supremacists always claimed that their cherished way of life was under siege by uppity others. Some men opposed feminist advances by arguing that they would be emasculated and their families destroyed by women’s equality. Evangelical homophobes have argued that their marriages will be ruined because I am allowed to marry.

So when you see the watermelon emoji on a social media bio or a protest sign, and you wonder what it represents, know this: They want you to think they are plucky defenders of the downtrodden. What they are actually is privileged, self-righteous dabblers and posers so unacquainted with oppression but so jealous of the saintly subjugated that they recast themselves as the victims of a grand conspiracy.

Like most aspects of the “pro-Palestinian” movement, this isn’t about Palestinians. In this rare instance, it isn’t even about Jews. The watermelon represents narcissistic Western activists centering their own narratives and focusing it all on themselves.