It is fascinating how rich in symbolism the Palestinians and Free Palestine! have become. Palestine is not only the cause du jour but what almost every angry, deracinated Western child screeches when performing any act of rage or rebellion—whether the pretext is anti-ICE, pro-Trans, something to do w Trump or climate change etc, the Palestinians are always there, always praised and chanted, their flag always waving. (I guess the Palestinians have replaced and consolidated everything from Che posters and shirts to Mao's Little Red Book and the Hammer & Sickle—they are the must-have item for the radical poser.)
But post-10/7 it seems that not only have the actual Palestinian people been completely severed from the Palestinian Cause, but they work in inverse now: the more the people suffer and die, the more futile their devotion to violence, the more their territory is reduced to rubble, the stronger the Cause grows, the richer the symbol becomes.
The Free Palestine! cult has crafted a mythical creature called "The Palestinians", who's become a proxy Christ, our sacred victim (killed again by Jews) who dies constantly for our sins and becomes the center of the Western liberal moral universe, as the mythical "Palestinian" bears all the weight of Christian guilt (the most abject is the most sacred) with his struggle reframed in Marxist dynamics (also post-Christian) where Oppressed/Oppressor supplant Saved/Damned and where, in order to be considered Good and Saved, one must devote their life to the worship and adoration of the mythical "Palestinian", who will be reborn in triumph if we can free him from the evil Jews, who worship an ancient vengeful deity that has no place in any modern dispensation, whether Marxist, liberal or Christian.
Free Palestine! seems to have combined religious eschatology with Marxist eschatology and political martyrdom with religious martyrdom and now has become entirely vampiric—it needs and craves Arab and Jewish blood for its survival. (It also helps greatly that most Westerners 1) know very little about this complicated conflict and its long history; and 2) that they live far away in safe, prosperous countries while other people do the bleeding and dying.)
But at root, I think, we're just living through another upsurge of Jew hate based on the fact of their stubborn particularism, which always leads to them being slated for destruction by whatever new universalism rears its head: Christianity, Marxism/Communism, Social Justice, the global corporate state, the Ummah—all their utopias demand the eradication of the ultimate undigestable lump, the Jews.
This is one of the many reasons why Jews drive people crazy. They insist upon existing when so many others need them to be erased.
The Palestinians are pioneering the future of entertainment: perpetual violent conflict, bloodsport, Mid East cage match rich with ideological kayfabe. Perfect for the era of digital media. We will eventually get VR tours of Gaza with Greta Thunberg voiceovers or immersive video-games which enable players to simulate self-immolation like Aaron Bushell so that supporters of Palestine can protest Zionism without getting burnt.
It is all engagement farming on a planetary scale. Useful for identity formation by sofa-dwelling anti-colonial types. The opportunity to slag off Jews appeals to those inclined to old hatreds with the added frisson of enabling anti-Zionists to simultaneously ally with the Global South while pursuing the geopolitics of the Third Reich (great champions of Arab nationalism in their day). In the best tradition of college...you don't need to do the reading, just remember the slogans. The keffiyeh goes brilliantly with purple hair, facial piercings, tattoos. And the ideological and historical assumptions work well with brain-fog.
You are spot on about particularism. The gleichschaltung at work in modernity/globalisation (happy to admit that I read Adorno and Horkheimer as a clueless young adult) inevitably involves crushing anything singular, irregular or difficult to define. Sciascia once observed in 'The Knight and Death' that the modern world had declared war on both the Jews and the Sicilians. He wasn't wrong.
I am Sicilian and my wife is Jewish, which maybe explains why we're both allergic to all the big lies and propaganda that surround this issue. (At least me ;))
But everyone else I know, sadly, has swallowed the NYT line that the world would be a much better place sans the Jewish state.
The Palestinians are the great MacGuffin of our time, the indispensable prop that drives the actions, actors and their motivations.
We are living through another golden age of the useful idiot.
We discussed Sicily (and you explained your connection to the island) in a thread on FISTED BY FOUCAUILT a while ago, which is why I threw in the reference to Sciascia.
The Sicilians are indeed allergic to ideology. Too much history, too much cruelty at the hands of invaders and each other to indulge reductive fantasies about utopia.
I bumped into an Australian woman of Sicilian parentage shortly before I posted. Family left to get away from Mussolini. She speaks the old dialect. During our conversation she made some adverse comments about the national government of Italy. In response, I observed that Sicily was civilised when Rome was no better than Canberra.
Thank you. It relies in large part on me finding perceptive people to build analysis on. In this case, S.C. “Sally” Paine from the US Naval War College and Aimen Dean from the Conflicted podcast.
My favorite podcast is NEUTRALITY STUDIES. According to it, after three weeks of war, the United States has been soundly defeated by Iran. The entirety of American foreign policy is in disarray. A collapse of the North Atlantic alliance is imminent. Taiwan is about to throw in the towel. Trump is facing certain ruin.
Interesting article. What I would suggest to Ms. Van Dyke is that the most essential mineral in Brasil right now, is the very unsexy dolomite limestone used in agriculture - for without it we would be exporting just coffee and bananas and football players and cheap labor.
And you would think that we Brasileiros would have that under control. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Thank you, Gunther. That's , something I need to do a bit of research on because I genuinely don't know anything about the agricultural uses of dolomite limestone!
Do you think that China completely rejects the mercantile-maritime order or does it simply want a different one, one of its own, one in which its institutions dominate and it is hegemonic? Its building the world biggest navy, merchant fleet, seeks to control rights of navigation, claims local seas and islands, and has the belt road initiative?
Of course it only wants a 'free trade' as long as it is the net exporter, it is in surplus, it owns assets or debts and the west/rest are in debt/deficit.
I think the CCP has mixed motives. It has benefited from the decades long surge in the Chinese economy. Moreover, any Chinese regime is going to seek to renegotiate elements of the mercantile-maritime order for its own benefit. But there are also aspects of the mercantile maritime order the CCP finds threatening, including for its internal social dynamics. Hence the CCP’s strategy is a lot less coherent than people think: it has done quite a lot to drive countries towards the US, for instance.
There is the irony that one of those most against the US-led maritime order is one Donald J. Trump. Don't assume he is doing this for the benefit of that order. It might happen so by accident, but not by design.
Lambert makes the point that the Dutch Republic not only suffered from having land borders to defend, but that the landed/rural interest did not share the same perspective as the coastal/urban interest.
The US is displaying that, with the Coasts versus Flyover Country. Trump is a Flyover President, despite being such a New York figure.
It is fascinating how rich in symbolism the Palestinians and Free Palestine! have become. Palestine is not only the cause du jour but what almost every angry, deracinated Western child screeches when performing any act of rage or rebellion—whether the pretext is anti-ICE, pro-Trans, something to do w Trump or climate change etc, the Palestinians are always there, always praised and chanted, their flag always waving. (I guess the Palestinians have replaced and consolidated everything from Che posters and shirts to Mao's Little Red Book and the Hammer & Sickle—they are the must-have item for the radical poser.)
But post-10/7 it seems that not only have the actual Palestinian people been completely severed from the Palestinian Cause, but they work in inverse now: the more the people suffer and die, the more futile their devotion to violence, the more their territory is reduced to rubble, the stronger the Cause grows, the richer the symbol becomes.
The Free Palestine! cult has crafted a mythical creature called "The Palestinians", who's become a proxy Christ, our sacred victim (killed again by Jews) who dies constantly for our sins and becomes the center of the Western liberal moral universe, as the mythical "Palestinian" bears all the weight of Christian guilt (the most abject is the most sacred) with his struggle reframed in Marxist dynamics (also post-Christian) where Oppressed/Oppressor supplant Saved/Damned and where, in order to be considered Good and Saved, one must devote their life to the worship and adoration of the mythical "Palestinian", who will be reborn in triumph if we can free him from the evil Jews, who worship an ancient vengeful deity that has no place in any modern dispensation, whether Marxist, liberal or Christian.
Free Palestine! seems to have combined religious eschatology with Marxist eschatology and political martyrdom with religious martyrdom and now has become entirely vampiric—it needs and craves Arab and Jewish blood for its survival. (It also helps greatly that most Westerners 1) know very little about this complicated conflict and its long history; and 2) that they live far away in safe, prosperous countries while other people do the bleeding and dying.)
But at root, I think, we're just living through another upsurge of Jew hate based on the fact of their stubborn particularism, which always leads to them being slated for destruction by whatever new universalism rears its head: Christianity, Marxism/Communism, Social Justice, the global corporate state, the Ummah—all their utopias demand the eradication of the ultimate undigestable lump, the Jews.
This is one of the many reasons why Jews drive people crazy. They insist upon existing when so many others need them to be erased.
See also. https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/meet-the-omnicause
Great comment.
Thanks!
Your essays are always excellent.
Cheers
The Palestinians are pioneering the future of entertainment: perpetual violent conflict, bloodsport, Mid East cage match rich with ideological kayfabe. Perfect for the era of digital media. We will eventually get VR tours of Gaza with Greta Thunberg voiceovers or immersive video-games which enable players to simulate self-immolation like Aaron Bushell so that supporters of Palestine can protest Zionism without getting burnt.
It is all engagement farming on a planetary scale. Useful for identity formation by sofa-dwelling anti-colonial types. The opportunity to slag off Jews appeals to those inclined to old hatreds with the added frisson of enabling anti-Zionists to simultaneously ally with the Global South while pursuing the geopolitics of the Third Reich (great champions of Arab nationalism in their day). In the best tradition of college...you don't need to do the reading, just remember the slogans. The keffiyeh goes brilliantly with purple hair, facial piercings, tattoos. And the ideological and historical assumptions work well with brain-fog.
You are spot on about particularism. The gleichschaltung at work in modernity/globalisation (happy to admit that I read Adorno and Horkheimer as a clueless young adult) inevitably involves crushing anything singular, irregular or difficult to define. Sciascia once observed in 'The Knight and Death' that the modern world had declared war on both the Jews and the Sicilians. He wasn't wrong.
Great comment!
I am Sicilian and my wife is Jewish, which maybe explains why we're both allergic to all the big lies and propaganda that surround this issue. (At least me ;))
But everyone else I know, sadly, has swallowed the NYT line that the world would be a much better place sans the Jewish state.
The Palestinians are the great MacGuffin of our time, the indispensable prop that drives the actions, actors and their motivations.
We are living through another golden age of the useful idiot.
Cheers
We discussed Sicily (and you explained your connection to the island) in a thread on FISTED BY FOUCAUILT a while ago, which is why I threw in the reference to Sciascia.
The Sicilians are indeed allergic to ideology. Too much history, too much cruelty at the hands of invaders and each other to indulge reductive fantasies about utopia.
I bumped into an Australian woman of Sicilian parentage shortly before I posted. Family left to get away from Mussolini. She speaks the old dialect. During our conversation she made some adverse comments about the national government of Italy. In response, I observed that Sicily was civilised when Rome was no better than Canberra.
Ahh yes, of course, now I remember
Thanks again
Tremendous comment! The drawing together of four strands is one of those "Magic Picture" moments!
Thanks!
Much appreciated
Extraordinarily insightful. I can find this level of insight nowhere else.
Thank you. It relies in large part on me finding perceptive people to build analysis on. In this case, S.C. “Sally” Paine from the US Naval War College and Aimen Dean from the Conflicted podcast.
My favorite podcast is NEUTRALITY STUDIES. According to it, after three weeks of war, the United States has been soundly defeated by Iran. The entirety of American foreign policy is in disarray. A collapse of the North Atlantic alliance is imminent. Taiwan is about to throw in the towel. Trump is facing certain ruin.
Comedy channels can be very entertaining.
You need to read this: https://amandavandyke.substack.com/p/the-war-behind-the-wars-chinas-bid. Once seen, never forgotten.
Thank you for putting me on to that piece.
It's quite an eye-opener. Ms Van Dyke is very knowledgeable and writes well.
Interesting article. What I would suggest to Ms. Van Dyke is that the most essential mineral in Brasil right now, is the very unsexy dolomite limestone used in agriculture - for without it we would be exporting just coffee and bananas and football players and cheap labor.
And you would think that we Brasileiros would have that under control. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Thank you, Gunther. That's , something I need to do a bit of research on because I genuinely don't know anything about the agricultural uses of dolomite limestone!
Do you think that China completely rejects the mercantile-maritime order or does it simply want a different one, one of its own, one in which its institutions dominate and it is hegemonic? Its building the world biggest navy, merchant fleet, seeks to control rights of navigation, claims local seas and islands, and has the belt road initiative?
Of course it only wants a 'free trade' as long as it is the net exporter, it is in surplus, it owns assets or debts and the west/rest are in debt/deficit.
I think the CCP has mixed motives. It has benefited from the decades long surge in the Chinese economy. Moreover, any Chinese regime is going to seek to renegotiate elements of the mercantile-maritime order for its own benefit. But there are also aspects of the mercantile maritime order the CCP finds threatening, including for its internal social dynamics. Hence the CCP’s strategy is a lot less coherent than people think: it has done quite a lot to drive countries towards the US, for instance.
There is the irony that one of those most against the US-led maritime order is one Donald J. Trump. Don't assume he is doing this for the benefit of that order. It might happen so by accident, but not by design.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/03/12/the-rise-of-seapower/
Lambert makes the point that the Dutch Republic not only suffered from having land borders to defend, but that the landed/rural interest did not share the same perspective as the coastal/urban interest.
The US is displaying that, with the Coasts versus Flyover Country. Trump is a Flyover President, despite being such a New York figure.