A Wake Up Call

Palestinian ‘journalist’ reporting from Gaza (Ifex)

One of the most revealing movies I have ever seen about the Holocaust was The Zone of Interest. It portrayed what life was like for the family of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, whose family lived just beyond the wall enclosing the camp. 

In short, life was pretty normal for his family. Had you not known that genocide was taking place just on the other side of that wall, you would have thought this was a simple story about the peaceful and loving domestic life of a German soldier and his family.

To my great dismay, when Jonathan Glazer - the Jewish director of the film - accepted the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, he publicly condemned Israel for its conduct in the war against Hamas, comparing the Palestinians in Gaza with the Jewish inmates at Auschwitz. He received applause from an audience consisting mainly of A-list actors and other important entertainment-industry figures.

The war had only been going on for a few months at the time. To say the least, I was both shocked and disappointed.

It has been all downhill since then. What was once broad support for the Jewish state has turned into a contest over who can bash Israel the most. While there has been an increase in closet antisemites on the right who now bash Israel as a euphemism for bashing Jews, most mainstream conservative Republicans generally still support the State of Israel.

On the left, however, bashing Israel has become far more mainstream. This can be seen in the recent gains made by far-left, anti-Israel candidates for public office. And by the many mainstream Democrats who have disavowed their relationship with AIPAC. It is almost as though there is a race to see who can reject AIPAC support the most.

AIPAC’s support used to be eagerly sought after by any politician who wanted Jewish support. That mattered more in terms of campaign donations than Jewish votes, since our percentage of the population is less than 2 percent. Governor J.B. Pritzker – who is Jewish - was quick to reject their support in any way, shape, or form, as were many mainstream Jewish Democrats who apparently felt the need to prove their anti-Israel bona fides.

The mainstream media has also been guilty of contributing to this through the way it had reported the war in Gaza. It repeatedly used images of carnage and destruction without bothering to explain what they were really about - trusting the bloody screens to tell their story for them. And since it was Israel dropping bombs in Gaza, along with reports of 76,000 civilian deaths coming out of there, Israel was seen as committing genocide. Even by those who did not use the word, the implication was clear, based on those images and the narrative coming from a variety of sources that were not friendly to Israel then and never were.

Had those reports been accurate, honest, and complete, Gaza would not be seen as the second coming of Auschwitz and the Jews as Nazi-like exterminators. And yet more and more Jews are beginning to believe the worst about their own people based on unexplained images of war and the perpetual lies being forwarded and repeated by the mainstream media. A lot of Jews are being gaslighted into believing these falsehoods. The idea that repeating a lie often enough makes people think it is true has never been more evident than it is now...

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