Hey Pat, I've been enjoying your work for a while. Last night I was catching up on the episodes of John Oliver that I missed while I was keeping people safe at festivals and I had to sit through his recent rant on Gaza. 🙄
If you'd be so kind as to read my very first post on here about what I encountered at one of those festivals you sure might find it interesting.
Will! This is a masterpiece. I wish I had written it. You have more tolerance for idiocy than I do. I could not have put myself in your place. But how brilliantly you did! Who the hell are you and why haven't we met yet?
Hi, I just read your article, and really appreciate what you wrote, particularly this:
So I gave them calm and rational. After the land acknowledgement, where we all gave thanks to the Nlaka’pamux and Syilx for being able to gather on their unceded traditional territories, I said, “I’d like to point out our privilege here, in that none of the members of those tribes are gathering on the hillsides above us with grenades, machine guns, and paragliders, waiting to swoop down and murder us all whilst we have this discussion. I’d also like to point out that a large number of First Nations communities correctly see Israel as one of the world’s foremost decolonization projects.”
And also your reference to the disinformation campaign around AIDS and how it harmed the gay community. Really great points, and it always makes me feel just a tad less afraid when I see someone confronting this crap with calm and the kind of insights that stun people into silence.
I'm just curious about the Burning Man event you reference. Was it the US Burning Man or one of the regional festivals held in Canada (aka Sideburn)? To the best of my knowledge IJV chapters exist in Canada and Britain, but not the US.
I mention this because IJV has long been allied with Samidoun Prisoners Network, a PFLP front group banned in both Canada and the US, but which continues to operate in Canada because their corporate charter was never revoked, and I understand that IJV continues to work with Samidoun. If in Canada, the Minister of Public Safety should be pressed on this matter.
Samidoun! That's the name of the organization I was going to name drop on them to see their reaction but in the moment I couldn't think of it. Yeah they're based on Vancouver which is about 3-4 hours from where the festival was, so I am familiar. Think the lady's name is Cates who still faces a day in court for her terrorism supporting activities.
IJV has several affiliates in Canada, including Toronto and Hamilton. In Toronto, they were known for their Friday Shabbat pickets outside the Israeli Consulate and across from Indigo-Chapters flagship store in the Manulife Centre, which IJV used to like to target as well because owner Heather Reisman and her spouse Gerry Schwartz are founding patrons of a "lone soldiers" support organization.
The Hamilton chapter is particularly active. One of their number, a rabbi, supposedly, named David Mivisir, is also president of the local NDP riding association and vocally support former Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Juma, who got bounced out of the caucus by provincial leader Marit Stiles for, among many things, denying that mass rapes were committed by Hamasniks on October 7th. One long time IJV Hamilton area ringleaders, Ken Stone, is known to have been a guest of the Islamic Republic of Iran on at least one occasion. They are vile.
I'll bet it's quite a tale. Wasn't aware that he ended up in the Hammer via Vancouver. I am under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that he brought his crankery to Canada from the US, although he may have been born in Canada.
Vile is the appropriate word for sure. Speaking of, Samidoun, which IS a terrorist entity in Canada, their mascot Charlotte Kates (I got the name right but the spelling wrong) was arrested for hate speech but has yet to be prosecuted. 🙄
Yes, as of late May of this year, the BC prosecutors' office still hadn't made its decision as to whether to proceed with the hate speech charges. I hope additional charges are pending over Samidoun continuing to be active despite its proscription and that IJV gets sanctioned along with Samidoun.
Incredible to think that the banning order didn't go as far as to cause the federal and all provincial corporate registrars to terminate any corporate registrations associated with a banned entity.
Another great post, Pat! Whenever I point out the hypocrisy behind ignoring the hundreds of millions of actually starving and dying humans on earth, I get responses such as, “well that’s because they’re African and no one cares about Africans”, to which I always want to reply, “what, so Gazans are white now?” I was disappointed to read even Bono (an artist I have followed with great affection for over 40 years) point out some of the numbers similar to those you give, then say there is no hierarchy to suffering (a handy way to excuse the disproportionate attention to Gaza), immediately followed by “But…but…but” - as further proof that somehow this conflict is STILL worse than all others! Israel IS the “whataboutism” used to deflect attention away from all others. Gaza has now become everyone’s pet care, which is as useful to Gazans, let alone Israelis, as (to quote a friend) “t!ts on a bull.”
Excellent article — one of the clearest, most grounded takes I’ve read on the subject.
If I were to add anything, it would be this: the world seems willfully blind to the fact that billions in foreign aid — much of it from taxpayers in the West — has poured into Gaza over the past 20 years. Instead of building a thriving society, Hamas and its enablers built the most extensive terrorist tunnel network on Earth, right under their civilian population’s feet. Are we to believe the population didn’t notice? They voted Hamas in, they raised generations on hatred, and they aided and abetted this infrastructure of war.
And while the public is fed a steady diet of outrage at Israel, legacy media in the West fails to report that more food has entered Gaza since the war began than before — and that Hamas is stealing it, per a UN report. The press either buries these facts or ignores them entirely, choosing instead to amplify lies that place Jews and Israelis in ever greater danger. They should be held to account for this complicity.
Finally, the recognition of a “Palestinian state” by the likes of Canada, Australia, France, and the UK is an insult to truth and history. Jordan is already 80% Palestinian. Gaza itself had self-rule in 2005. The world handed them a state — they chose terror.
The facts are not hard to find. The will to acknowledge them, apparently, is.
Some people speak about our current political elite as if they do not understand the mistakes that they are making when it comes to Israel. I think I might have a more cynical view, but regardless, I wish that Pat could be an advisor to our government about Israel. Sorry for "nominating" you, Pat, but I agree that our politicians really need you.
Why the highly disproportionate focus on the misery in Gaza? The result of 60 years of the propaganda efforts of the Soviet Union, the Arab League. the Organization for the Islamic Cooperation, the "non-aligned states" and the resulting hijacking of the United Nations General Assembly and various UN agencies and commissions. How else do you account for decades of Israel being on the receiving end of more condemnatory resolutions than Syria, Iran, North Korea, Russia and other truly vile human rights abusers in total -- and the focus of special rapporteurs and until recently a "Committee of Inquiry" with no sunset date, because the panelists all resigned in a pre-empt of being banned from the US as Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, the abysmal Francesca Albanese. Then there's the numerous international "humanitarian" NGOs with their condemnatory reports on Israel, who have during this war issued denials of what was proven to be absolutely true about Hamas and PIJ using hospitals, schools, mosques and other "civilian" infrastructure as operational bases. Then there's Al Jazeera and pressure groups that exist for no other purpose than demonizing Israel. So little wonder we're where we are today.
I hate the whataboutism accusation. Pointing out a double standard isn't a deflection. It's not even a double standard since Israel can defend many of its actions substantively and yet still, the critics won't move on to Sudan and what have you. It's not a standard at all. It's sheer ignorance. And every cent that went to Palestine didn't go somewhere else, where it might have been useful. I wonder how people feel dying of TB, knowing that.
Excellent analysis, Pat. The disproportionate attention to Gaza compared to other heartbreaking humanitarian crises is, among other thing, an adaptation of antisemitic tropes about Jews and food—going back to the idea that the Jews need blood to bake matzahs. Check out the examples below that use eating tropes to feed antisemitism. Today, because we do no longer associate being rich with obesity, the traditional tropes (for example in the cartoon in the third link from Nazi Germany) need to be adapted. So today the Jews are no longer described as literally obese, but rather as evil intentional starvers.
wowee, two jawr dropperz-- 1st that BBC front page... aka B.ibi B.ashin' C.rapola (ya'd think with all them groomin' gangs of "notta jooze" there'd be sumthin' else ta bray about in the UK?!) an' next them brutal FACTS... I had no idea only 2/305 mil "starvin' marvins" 'round the world were Gazzuns. I mean arguably it's less as all 2-mil ain't starvin'--I've seen quite a few ample-bodied Gazzuns that look more like "Guzzlin's"--I'm that last person ta go on fat shamin' (fan of Totie Fields, Mama Cass, an' Victor Buono fer gawdsakes!) BUT... this smells like too much "fried DOUGH!" (all senses ;-) great stack this'un... I'm jus' amazed at the prestidigitation of the MeeDia... look HERE not like...everywhare else!
Hey Pat, I've been enjoying your work for a while. Last night I was catching up on the episodes of John Oliver that I missed while I was keeping people safe at festivals and I had to sit through his recent rant on Gaza. 🙄
If you'd be so kind as to read my very first post on here about what I encountered at one of those festivals you sure might find it interesting.
https://open.substack.com/pub/extropyshaman/p/what-ifantisemitism-wins?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=29au4j
Will! This is a masterpiece. I wish I had written it. You have more tolerance for idiocy than I do. I could not have put myself in your place. But how brilliantly you did! Who the hell are you and why haven't we met yet?
Long time lurker first time poster?
Hahaha. Welcome!
Hi, I just read your article, and really appreciate what you wrote, particularly this:
So I gave them calm and rational. After the land acknowledgement, where we all gave thanks to the Nlaka’pamux and Syilx for being able to gather on their unceded traditional territories, I said, “I’d like to point out our privilege here, in that none of the members of those tribes are gathering on the hillsides above us with grenades, machine guns, and paragliders, waiting to swoop down and murder us all whilst we have this discussion. I’d also like to point out that a large number of First Nations communities correctly see Israel as one of the world’s foremost decolonization projects.”
And also your reference to the disinformation campaign around AIDS and how it harmed the gay community. Really great points, and it always makes me feel just a tad less afraid when I see someone confronting this crap with calm and the kind of insights that stun people into silence.
Great essay, heartfelt and ringing brightly with truth.
Very good piece Will.
I'm just curious about the Burning Man event you reference. Was it the US Burning Man or one of the regional festivals held in Canada (aka Sideburn)? To the best of my knowledge IJV chapters exist in Canada and Britain, but not the US.
I mention this because IJV has long been allied with Samidoun Prisoners Network, a PFLP front group banned in both Canada and the US, but which continues to operate in Canada because their corporate charter was never revoked, and I understand that IJV continues to work with Samidoun. If in Canada, the Minister of Public Safety should be pressed on this matter.
Samidoun! That's the name of the organization I was going to name drop on them to see their reaction but in the moment I couldn't think of it. Yeah they're based on Vancouver which is about 3-4 hours from where the festival was, so I am familiar. Think the lady's name is Cates who still faces a day in court for her terrorism supporting activities.
IJV has several affiliates in Canada, including Toronto and Hamilton. In Toronto, they were known for their Friday Shabbat pickets outside the Israeli Consulate and across from Indigo-Chapters flagship store in the Manulife Centre, which IJV used to like to target as well because owner Heather Reisman and her spouse Gerry Schwartz are founding patrons of a "lone soldiers" support organization.
The Hamilton chapter is particularly active. One of their number, a rabbi, supposedly, named David Mivisir, is also president of the local NDP riding association and vocally support former Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Juma, who got bounced out of the caucus by provincial leader Marit Stiles for, among many things, denying that mass rapes were committed by Hamasniks on October 7th. One long time IJV Hamilton area ringleaders, Ken Stone, is known to have been a guest of the Islamic Republic of Iran on at least one occasion. They are vile.
I have rather a history with Mivasair. Quite a tale to tell. He was in Vancouver until he decamped to Hamilton, their loss being our gain.
I'll bet it's quite a tale. Wasn't aware that he ended up in the Hammer via Vancouver. I am under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that he brought his crankery to Canada from the US, although he may have been born in Canada.
Vile is the appropriate word for sure. Speaking of, Samidoun, which IS a terrorist entity in Canada, their mascot Charlotte Kates (I got the name right but the spelling wrong) was arrested for hate speech but has yet to be prosecuted. 🙄
Yes, as of late May of this year, the BC prosecutors' office still hadn't made its decision as to whether to proceed with the hate speech charges. I hope additional charges are pending over Samidoun continuing to be active despite its proscription and that IJV gets sanctioned along with Samidoun.
In case you'd like to join Bnai Brith's email campaign to Industry Canada re: terminating Samidoun's corporate registration, here's the link.
https://www.bnaibrith.ca/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20863189663&gbraid=0AAAAADAzoytBCZ3M7Dm1Lc7owxLhc488v&gclid=CjwKCAjwkvbEBhApEiwAKUz6-7ypfsXa3DDBLZLx4WDCJ2C0T5YZLWaF9g3HyFEoD1nWAbkShruRqxoClIgQAvD_BwE
Incredible to think that the banning order didn't go as far as to cause the federal and all provincial corporate registrars to terminate any corporate registrations associated with a banned entity.
Another great post, Pat! Whenever I point out the hypocrisy behind ignoring the hundreds of millions of actually starving and dying humans on earth, I get responses such as, “well that’s because they’re African and no one cares about Africans”, to which I always want to reply, “what, so Gazans are white now?” I was disappointed to read even Bono (an artist I have followed with great affection for over 40 years) point out some of the numbers similar to those you give, then say there is no hierarchy to suffering (a handy way to excuse the disproportionate attention to Gaza), immediately followed by “But…but…but” - as further proof that somehow this conflict is STILL worse than all others! Israel IS the “whataboutism” used to deflect attention away from all others. Gaza has now become everyone’s pet care, which is as useful to Gazans, let alone Israelis, as (to quote a friend) “t!ts on a bull.”
Oh, there IS a hierarchy of suffering -- and the ones who say there isn't are the ones who invented and perpetuate it.
Also, this: https://pat604johnson.substack.com/p/a-competition-of-victimhood
Excellent article — one of the clearest, most grounded takes I’ve read on the subject.
If I were to add anything, it would be this: the world seems willfully blind to the fact that billions in foreign aid — much of it from taxpayers in the West — has poured into Gaza over the past 20 years. Instead of building a thriving society, Hamas and its enablers built the most extensive terrorist tunnel network on Earth, right under their civilian population’s feet. Are we to believe the population didn’t notice? They voted Hamas in, they raised generations on hatred, and they aided and abetted this infrastructure of war.
And while the public is fed a steady diet of outrage at Israel, legacy media in the West fails to report that more food has entered Gaza since the war began than before — and that Hamas is stealing it, per a UN report. The press either buries these facts or ignores them entirely, choosing instead to amplify lies that place Jews and Israelis in ever greater danger. They should be held to account for this complicity.
Finally, the recognition of a “Palestinian state” by the likes of Canada, Australia, France, and the UK is an insult to truth and history. Jordan is already 80% Palestinian. Gaza itself had self-rule in 2005. The world handed them a state — they chose terror.
The facts are not hard to find. The will to acknowledge them, apparently, is.
Beautifully said!! Should be requred reading for all politicians!
Some people speak about our current political elite as if they do not understand the mistakes that they are making when it comes to Israel. I think I might have a more cynical view, but regardless, I wish that Pat could be an advisor to our government about Israel. Sorry for "nominating" you, Pat, but I agree that our politicians really need you.
Bahaha. Gawdhelpusall.
Excellent post, Pat. Have you written about why *you* are so obsessed with this subject? If so, please share links.
Hahaha. Indeed I have.
Here: https://pat604johnson.substack.com/p/whats-with-me
and here: https://pat604johnson.substack.com/p/why-do-i-write
Why the highly disproportionate focus on the misery in Gaza? The result of 60 years of the propaganda efforts of the Soviet Union, the Arab League. the Organization for the Islamic Cooperation, the "non-aligned states" and the resulting hijacking of the United Nations General Assembly and various UN agencies and commissions. How else do you account for decades of Israel being on the receiving end of more condemnatory resolutions than Syria, Iran, North Korea, Russia and other truly vile human rights abusers in total -- and the focus of special rapporteurs and until recently a "Committee of Inquiry" with no sunset date, because the panelists all resigned in a pre-empt of being banned from the US as Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, the abysmal Francesca Albanese. Then there's the numerous international "humanitarian" NGOs with their condemnatory reports on Israel, who have during this war issued denials of what was proven to be absolutely true about Hamas and PIJ using hospitals, schools, mosques and other "civilian" infrastructure as operational bases. Then there's Al Jazeera and pressure groups that exist for no other purpose than demonizing Israel. So little wonder we're where we are today.
I hate the whataboutism accusation. Pointing out a double standard isn't a deflection. It's not even a double standard since Israel can defend many of its actions substantively and yet still, the critics won't move on to Sudan and what have you. It's not a standard at all. It's sheer ignorance. And every cent that went to Palestine didn't go somewhere else, where it might have been useful. I wonder how people feel dying of TB, knowing that.
Pat, your insight & understanding is ever so informative .. thank you
The world hates Jews.....accept that and move on. תתנהג בהתאם
Stop! Too much truth!!!!
Excellent analysis, Pat. The disproportionate attention to Gaza compared to other heartbreaking humanitarian crises is, among other thing, an adaptation of antisemitic tropes about Jews and food—going back to the idea that the Jews need blood to bake matzahs. Check out the examples below that use eating tropes to feed antisemitism. Today, because we do no longer associate being rich with obesity, the traditional tropes (for example in the cartoon in the third link from Nazi Germany) need to be adapted. So today the Jews are no longer described as literally obese, but rather as evil intentional starvers.
https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/blood-libel
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/far-right-party-leader-in-austria-lambasted-for-posting-anti-semitic-cartoon-on-facebook
https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/1bvde16/here_kid_i_have_some_candy_for_you_but_you_have/
wowee, two jawr dropperz-- 1st that BBC front page... aka B.ibi B.ashin' C.rapola (ya'd think with all them groomin' gangs of "notta jooze" there'd be sumthin' else ta bray about in the UK?!) an' next them brutal FACTS... I had no idea only 2/305 mil "starvin' marvins" 'round the world were Gazzuns. I mean arguably it's less as all 2-mil ain't starvin'--I've seen quite a few ample-bodied Gazzuns that look more like "Guzzlin's"--I'm that last person ta go on fat shamin' (fan of Totie Fields, Mama Cass, an' Victor Buono fer gawdsakes!) BUT... this smells like too much "fried DOUGH!" (all senses ;-) great stack this'un... I'm jus' amazed at the prestidigitation of the MeeDia... look HERE not like...everywhare else!