To continue the crushing of the US Palestinian Movement. Let’s not pretend that the retaliation against student protesters started this year.
Heritage describes Project Esther as a “groundbreaking” national strategy to fight antisemitism that aims not to censor opinions but to hold people it deems to be supporters of Hamas, a designated terrorist group, responsible for their actions. But critics such as Mr. Jacoby say the think tank is exploiting real concerns about antisemitism to advance its broader agenda of radically reshaping higher education and crushing progressive movements more generally. Project Esther exclusively focuses on antisemitism on the left, ignoring antisemitic harassment and violence from the right. It has drawn criticism from many Jewish organizations amid increasing calls for them to push back against the Trump administration. “Trump is pulling straight from the authoritarian playbook, using tools of repression first against those organizing for Palestinian rights,” said Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. “And in so doing, sharpening those tools for use against anyone and everyone who challenges his fascist agenda.”
Surprising to see the NYT reporting on this, since they’ve usually been on board with such crushing.
There are a lot of good rank and file journalists at NYT, and they have resisted attempts by the higher-ups to censor them. So there has been both bad and good coverage on this topic as a result.
When I read this it occurred to me once again that there’s nothing really in it for groups like this to want to crush Gaza. I wanted to take a moment to finally reflect on it.
The easy answer is AIPAC or real estate or some other opportunity for personal gain. I think that’s part of an answer for some of them, but I don’t think it’s even the largest part of the answer.
Another possibility is anti-terrorism. Hamas is certainly a terrorist organization and has committed horrific atrocities. But I feel like Republicans have always used terrorism as an excuse, not a primary driver.
Palestinians are brown. Is it simple racism? There are lots of brown people involved in conflicts we don’t get involved in, though.
For some evangelicals, or those with lots of evangelical supporters, supporting Israel to bring about the end times and the second coming of Christ is probably a small piece of the answer. But I don’t even really think most evangelicals think about supporting Israel from that perspective, but more from an emotional perspective. They simply equate Israel with the Holy Land.
Of course it’s mostly leftists who are protesting in support of Palestinians. Is it as simple as wanting to hurt leftists? Maybe domestically, but would they execute on this plan with such urgency and persistence?
These all seem like pieces.
Then I zoomed out a bit and thought about the ideological conflict. Israel, a far-right government, is willing and evidently able to crush an enemy population (I think it’s fair at this point to say Israel considers all of Gaza their enemy), destroy all infrastructure, and then starve every single person to death. The very definition of genocide. And they can do so completely and with impunity. No one can tell them what to do.
And I realized that while the other factors contribute to their support, Republicans support this primarily because this is Israel doing whatever it wants and crushing its enemies into dust. Republicans love it. They love the strength, they love the control, they love the cruelty, they love hating an Other, and they love simple solutions to complex problems. How many times have I heard a Republican say the US should turn the entire Middle East into glass? Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.
And they would love to be able to do the same thing within the US.
^ this. I have never bought the whole “evangelical apocalypse” logic, they’ve never actually followed the bibles teachings to begin with, why would they start now?
It’s also because both Stephen Miller and his wife are very conservative Jews, he’s an extremely conservative and powerful man with grand plans for the US and is using his faith as a weapon.
this particular group of people can go fuck themselves to the fullest extent
