The Hypocrisy of Pro Palestine Protesters
How’s that for a click-bait title?
I recently published a pair of articles that received a lot of attention, more than I expected. So, I am continuing and posting up a pair of new articles that look at additional important aspects of the ongoing conflict in Israel.
This time I want to look at the issue of HYPOCRICY, and the damage it creates.
Feel free to check out the Hypocrisy of Israeli Hard-Liners here.
I am deeply troubled by the rhetoric from Pro Palestinian (aka Pro-Hamas) supporters. I see an incredible amount of both hypocrisy and ignorance. Both cause material damage to any hope of progress, but in different ways.
Hypocrisy is loosely defined as: a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
In other words, practice what you preach.
Hypocrisy implies that the individual is cognizant that what they are preaching does not align with what they practice. Hypocrites know what they say or do is wrong, yet do so anyhow.
In the context of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, there are a number of glaring points of hypocrisy, where individuals say certain things that contradict what they actually know. Let’s unpack a few examples, and then try to understand why this happens, and what to do with it.
Hamas are “Freedom Fighters”
It is an indisputable fact that Hamas are not “Freedom Fighters” by any stretch of the word. Hamas is an evil Jihadi terrorist organization and every single citizen killed in Gaza since Oct 7th would be alive right now had they not launched a war.
Hamas kidnapping civilians? Check.
Hamas purposefully killing thousands of civilians including children? Check.
Hamas using all your foreign donations to build endless terror tunnels? Check and Check.
Hamas using hospitals as terror command centers? Check.
Hamas purposefully using non-combatants (including children) as human shields? Check.
Hamas brutalizing the Palestinian civilians of Gaza, including beheading those in the LBGTQ community? Check, Check, and Check.
Hamas torturing and executing dissenters? Check.
And for those who have forgotten what Hamas did on October 7th, you can remind yourself here (extremely NSFW).
And yet…there are still people out there like this:
The Rape Deniers
There is absolutely no question that Hamas uses mass Rape as a weapon. There are first person accounts, second person accounts, third person accounts, multiple investigative exposes with extensive review of evidence, and endless stories. Even Hamas terrorists themselves admit to it.
There is nothing “alleged” about this. It actually happened. Just like the Holocaust actually happened.
And yet…. There are still people out there, even prominent ones, who deny mass weaponization of rape ever happened.
For example, Briahna Joy Grey, former national press secretary for the Sanders campaign in 2020. She was once a “Believe All Women” die-hard. She was one of the far left politicos who stated that Biden should have dropped out of the 2020 race because of sexual assault allegations.
But when it comes to Jewish women, Briahna sings a different story entirely:
How can someone collect a rape kit off a dead body or a hostage in a terror tunnel?
The feminist and far left silence on Rape is a prime example of hypocrisy, as eloquently explained by journalist Bari Weiss, because the evidence is irrefutable.
The Genocide Fanboys and Fangirls
As Bret Stephens wrote recently in the NYT: The Genocide Charge Against Israel Is a Moral Obscenity:
It’s obscene because it perverts the definition of genocide, which is precise: “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Notice two key features of this definition: It speaks of acts whereas part of the genocide case against Israel involves the misinterpretation of quotes from Israeli officials who have vowed Hamas’s elimination, not the elimination of Palestinians. And it uses the term as such — meaning the acts are genocidal only if they are directed at Palestinians as Palestinians, not as members of Hamas or, heartbreakingly, as collateral deaths in attempts to destroy Hamas.
What Stephens is saying is that what is happening to citizens in Gaza is tragic, but it is not Genocide.
Denis MacEoin, literally one of the world’s most preeminent scholars on Middle Eastern history, stated the same thing in a notable letter he wrote prior to his death (I copied the entire letter at the very bottom):
It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.
Even the International Court of Justice came to the same conclusion very recently. While many will argue it was a victory for the anti-Israel crowd, the court explicitly did not call Israel’s action Genocide — the court actually requested that Israel be careful not to conduct Genocide in the future. (The court also did not call for a Ceasefire, which really pissed off a lot of the far left).
And yet…
Even though the definition of Genocide is very clear, and even though the ICJ agreed that Israel is not committing Genocide, and even though the national charters of Hamas, the Houthis, and plenty other organization are explicitly genocidal, there are still way way way too many people who throw around the term haphazardly, devoid of context and in blatant disregard of actual genocidal actions that are happening around the globe.
“I’m not Anti-Jewish, I’m Anti-Zionist” crowd
It is not “Anti-Zionist” to make a bomb threat to an elementary school. It is not “Anti-Zionist” to harass the mayor of San Antonio. It is not “Anti-Zionist” to call “Gas the Jews” in the streets. It is not “Anti-Zionism” to project a Swastika on a dorm. It is not “Anti-Zionism” to harass and terrorize Jewish restaurants. It is not “Anti-Zionism” to rip down posters of kidnapped children. It is not “Anti-Zionism” to call for Israeli and Israelis to be “wiped off the map”. It is not “Anti-Zionism” to deface property and synagogues.
I could go on, but you get the point.
The recent protest blocking the entrance to the Cancer ward of Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York were the pinnacle of this hypocrisy, claiming that MSK is complicit in genocide. Why MSK? Because in 2019 MSK collaborated with Rambam hospital in Israel to develop life saving oncology drugs.
That’s right, MSK and Rambam collaborated to save lives of cancer patients, and yet are somehow involved in the Gaza conflict. Rambam, like MSK and all Israeli hospitals, strictly adhere to the Hippocratic Oath. Israeli hospitals, and Rambam specifically, are world-renown for treating patients from anywhere, regardless of religion. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had critical, life-saving brain surgery in an Israeli hospital.
In November, 2021, the Rambam Health Care Campus, a tertiary-care, academic, governmental medical centre in Haifa in the north of Israel, launched a mission to bridge the gap between Israeli and Palestinian communities and offer services, including paediatric and adult haemato–oncological services, to Palestinian patients from both Gaza and the West Bank. (per the Lancet)
And yet, the Pro-Palestinian (Jew Hating?) protesters will claim that this is not about hating Jews, but about calling attention to the plight of Palestinians. But these actions, and thousands more, clearly, and indisputably, point to pure Jew hatred, naked hypocrisy, and do absolutely nothing to help Palestinians.
The “Ceasefire Fanatics”
Want a ceasefire right now? Demand Hamas release the hostages.
You wanted a ceasefire a month ago? You should have demanded Hamas release the hostages.
Yes, it really is that easy.
And yet…
We see people in the street calling for “Ceasefire” and to “globalize the Intifada” in the same breath…
There are many more examples of the hypocrisy of Pro Palestinian (Anti-Jew) protesters, but the important part to remember is that hypocrites know what they say or do is wrong, yet do so anyhow.
So why are people hypocritical? Why do people say or do something that they logically know is incorrect? Psychology points to three underlying factors that are relevant to this situation
- Moral Superiority as Deflection
Hypocritical behavior manifests itself as moral superiority, which masks our strong fear of humility. Meaning, people are hypocritical because we are scared of owning up to our own shortcomings. We know our faults and flaws, and where we are wrong, but owning up to them publicly is scary enough to cause people to be hypocritical.
In the context of the Pro-Palestine protesters, I think deep down many know just how evil Hamas is, and recognize that mass rape did occur, but admitting this would be admitting they are wrong. It is much easier to continue claiming that Hamas are “Freedom Fighters”.
2. Social Desirability
Humans crave validation, respect, and inclusion from others, and when challenged by social constructs that conflict with individual morals, humans tend to cave and take the easy path of maintaining inclusion.
This makes a lot of sense in the current climate as well. There may be people in the far left who are starting to feel uncomfortable with the rhetoric, but will continue to maintain the facade for fear of being ostracized. You can see this play out over social media — whenever someone from the far left steps out and calls “bullshit” the rest of the community immediately calls for character assassination.
3. Ideology
Finally, hypocrisy can manifest when there is a deep-rooted ideological belief that outweighs any logic or understanding. For these types of hypocrites, it doesn’t matter how many times they are slapped with the truth, they will always find a way to justify their ideology.
This point brings us back to blatant Jew Hatred. It doesn’t matter how many proof points there are for the weaponization of Rape, even when Muslim women call it out, they will still deny it happened because their ideological hatred for Jews will always win. Their hearts are so filled with hatred toward Jews that logic, empathy, or understanding doesn’t matter.
For example, these crazy protesters blowing up a city council meetings in Palo Alto claiming the Israeli’s killed themselves (!!!).
So how do we deal with hypocrisy?
The answer is very simple — keep speaking up and keep confronting it. Call out the most blatant fallacies and lies at every opportunity. The purposeful dissemination of lies by Pro Palestinian hypocrites causes material damage to all sides. It breeds more hatred against Jews — Jews who have nothing to do with this conflict. It does not do anything to support Palestinian civilians. It creates animosity and pushes people further away from trying to reach any type of two-sided mutually beneficial understanding.
Don’t let the hypocrites gaslight you.
Letter from Denis MacEoin:
TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.
May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain ‘s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.
I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel .
That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.
Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a “Nazi” state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel , precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.
It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.
Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.
That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).
In Iran , the Bahai’s (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews — something no blacks were able to do in South Africa .
Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.
On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.
In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.
Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.
It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.
Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the
Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?
University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.
I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.
Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai’s…. Need I go on?
The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side.
Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument.
They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930’s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?
Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.
It’s up to you to find out more.
Yours sincerely,
Denis MacEoin
