From the perspective of free speech and fairness, Project Esther is bad news. It aims to treat support of the Palestinian cause and opposition to Israel's as inherently invalid, if not criminal. And aggressive guppies like Marco Rubio are prepared to enforce it.
It is, however, almost certain to be ineffective at the shaping of public opinion. Trump can't enforce a pro-Israel public. Lyndon Johnson could have. Sixty years ago the ball was in Israel's court. Its people―or at least many of them―had just escaped a horrific attempt at extermination. Combined with Jewish contributions to global culture and the fact that few in the West knew or cared much about Arabs, that made for Israel looking like an inherently heroic nation. I don't think the government could have made that situation last forever, but with some judicious and subtle lawmaking they could have made it last a very long time.
The situation is different now. There are too many images of carnage, too many openly genocidal statements from Tel Aviv. And while a Florida district recently put an even more obese version of Itabar Ben Gvir in Congress, that's exactly the wrong move in terms of public opinion. Once a cause has gone this far in losing public failure, you can't boost it through force.
Even right-leaning security types may be weaning themselves off the obsession with Islam. Rising in public consciousness are nihilistic and/or cartoonishly evil groups like Zizians, 764, and Eflists. Of course the combined membership of these groups could get lost in your average Walmart.
So I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of Satanic panics in the near future, with teenage delinquents joking and vandalizing their way into federal prison. That's not great. But panics are cyclical, and the cycle shows some signs of turning.
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The Heritage Foundation states: the "virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-American groups comprising the pro-Palestinian movement" are pro-Hamas and "effectively a terrorist support network."
The policy is not about stopping antisemitism—it’s about criminalizing dissent and silencing critics of Israel. The report explicitly targets student groups, human rights organizations, and even progressive Jewish activists, linking them to terrorism without evidence. Netanyahu calls Israeli protestors against his government 'Hamas supporters'. This appears to be nothing but another way of saying you're either with us or you're with the terrorists.
Knowing what we know now it looks like some decisions made about national boundaries after ww2 that mistakes were made. The first was to partition India and the second to gift Jews the Holy Land - an area of the Middle East that holds deep religious significance to three major religions. There were Jews there already and Christians and Muslims too.The new Israeli government's intention from the beginning wasn't to share the land in an equitable manner and there's no doubt they've been aggressive from the beginning. There is almost nothing left of traditional Arab lands in the territory while the Israeli government insists, contends, demands, vows that no one other than Jews be allowed to live there. Yep, too much carnage for anyone to pretend this is normal behavior.
When we heard about the bombing our first thought was that someone mistook the address for an abortion clinic. But oh no, after reading a bit about the perpetrator it seems he really was so anti-life he got Buddhism wrong too. Of course you're right that altogether these bizarre groups could get lost in an average Walmart. I don't see the inception of any national movements going on here. Some things are best ignored.
"Virulently" is a catastrophizing peacock word deployed only to make the mundane sound scarier. "Effectively" is a classic weasel word. The Heritage Foundation has nothing, but they figure it doesn't matter.
Dubya said, "You're with us or you're with the terrorists," in the early days of the War on Terror. This was in a time when Americans actually did worry about terrorism on American soil, regardless of how probable another 9/11 was. Now more restrictions are being put in place for the benefit of supporting Israeli policy, with no apparent benefit to the US. Not surprisingly there's not as much support in America, with even Republicans increasingly in disagreement. But restrictions on speech are like vampires. Once you open the door for them they'll keep coming back.
For whatever reason, the British Empire came apart in the absolute worst way it could have, at least as far as the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East are concerned. Probably an early sign of the utter fallibility of experts. The Stern Gang, a rather unsavory group, attained power early on, which has set a certain tone. Civil society in the country appeared to be healthier for a time, maybe because few were paying attention. But yeah, there's something obviously wrong now.
A lot of Westerners who claim to take Buddhism as an inspiration do get it wrong. On the one side there's equanimity masking simple yuppie indifference. On the other there's this. But I tend to think that any group that embraces killing and abuse as its stated ideals will have a limited reach. Maybe that's just me being a cockeyed optimist.
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