I apologize to readers for my brief silence. Having written a huge essay last week, I needed some time to recharge. In addition, four months of working full out in service of the Jewish media had become a bit much. Put simply, I was exhausted. Thanks to all for bearing with me.
In my latest JNS column, I deal with one of the reasons for my exhaustion: A general sense of the enormity of what’s been happening since the horrors of Oct. 7 and what it means for the historical destiny of the Jewish people.
In last week’s column, I wrote about an equally egregious subject: the weeping terrorist.
These days, the weeping terrorist is nothing less than an archetype. He’s a pathological narcissist who engages in public sadism, kills anyone he dislikes, undermines governments, foments civil war, props up dictators, and commits genocide. Then he whines about how mean everybody is to him. And the international elite loves him for it.
We’ve had some excellent examples recently. One, of course, is the relentless wailing over the sufferings of Gaza, the hypocrisy of which is redolent. After all, that suffering would end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, which none of the professional mourners are demanding. Nor are any of them doing much weeping over the victims of Oct. 7; first because they don’t care, and second because they think the victims deserved it.
Another almost comical example is both a weeping terrorist and a weeping tyrant: Iran’s “president” Ebrahim Raisi, who is rather exercised over the fact that the US and its allies, with their recent strikes on Iran’s proxies, have finally decided to stand up to him and his regime.
Hilariously, Raisi said that America’s resistance to his genocidal machinations “disrupts the security in the region.” Raisi, of course, is part of a regime that has done more to disrupt security in the region than any other party, killing thousands of people from Syria to Iraq, Yemen, and Israel.
Then there’s the Muslim American community, which is now constantly howling about an alleged wave of Islamophobia that, it must be emphasized, does not exist. I’m sure that some Muslim Americans have had unpleasant experiences, but there is no organized, concerted effort to persecute and oppress them.
Anti-Muslim Jews are not taking to the streets of major cities in their tens of thousands calling for the genocide of all Muslims. It is antisemitic Muslims who are doing so in order to call for the genocide of all Jews—including, it should be noted, American Jews.
Put simply, the Muslim American community is an essential part of an effort to persecute and ultimately destroy the American Jewish community—to relegate it to a new ghetto. The progressive left is essential to this effort as well, but the Muslim community and its leaders cannot be allowed to evade their own complicity by the spectacle of floods of tears.
In the end, the Muslim American community—some 60% of which supported the Oct. 7 massacre to one degree or another—should be treated as a racist white community would be treated. They should be told that, in progressive parlance, they must “do the work” of overcoming the hate that has infected their community.
Instead, the Biden administration, worried about its reelection, has begun the process of pandering and indulgence. Thus far, the administration has been thankfully supportive of Israel and the American Jewish community, but there are ominous signs that this support is waning. American Jews cannot allow the administration to give in to the electoral blackmail of a community now in the grips of profound moral dysfunction.
Pandering and indulgence are, it should be noted, already becoming policy. The US Department of Education—presumably after much arm-twisting—has opened an inquiry into alleged discrimination against certain Muslim students at Harvard University, who are apparently irritated that they have been exposed as pro-genocide antisemites.
There will be a great deal more of this in the coming months, I think, and not only because of egregious opinions in the Muslim community.
The larger Axis of Antisemitism, of which Muslim Americans are only a part, did not expect such an intense backlash against its long-standing campaign to destroy the American Jewish community—which it blames for enabling anything and everything Israel does. The Axis now knows it cannot intimidate, assault, slander, and murder Jews with total impunity.
The only way to regain that impunity, which the Axis feels it deserves by right, is to somehow portray the Axis itself as the victim. This fits with its penchant for conspiracy theories, particularly its absurd belief that it is being persecuted by an omnipotent Jewish plutocracy. It is simultaneously the weeping terrorist and the weeping tyrant.
Antisemitic Muslim students at Harvard can whine about being “doxxed” as much as they like, as if being exposed as antisemites and criminals—harassing and assaulting their fellow students are crimes, let us not forget—were somehow a form of persecution, but it changes nothing: They are the guilty ones and they should and must be held accountable. So must the Axis entire.
As readers may know, I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT a bit, and I’ve discovered something rather interesting but not surprising: It appears to have been programmed to be distinctly “woke.”
I discovered this by the simple expedient of asking about two historical subjects: The 1804 Haitian genocide and the FLN’s terrorism during the 1956-1962 Algerian War. Both were committed, by strange coincidence, largely against French people.
In the Haitian genocide, the newly liberated black population of Haiti slaughtered more or less the entire white population en masse. The FLN’s atrocities were innumerable and of a particularly brutal and sadistic kind. Both phenomena have been systemically downplayed in post-colonial historiography in favor of concentrating on the unquestionably horrific nature of Haitian slavery and the slaves’ heroic rebellion, and the French army’s deplorable atrocities in Algeria.
In both cases, the answers given by ChatGPT were almost identical: Atrocities happened on both sides and one must understand the historical context in which they took place. Almost no details of the atrocities whatsoever were given.
I don’t think this is all that surprising. It’s long been known that tech companies program their AI to avoid “bias,” which is admirable in theory, but in practice is leading to the whitewashing of some rather horrible behavior. Certainly, one shouldn’t allow AI to spout Nazism, but AI also shouldn’t be allowed to cover up Nazi-style crimes to avoid it.
I recently watched John Woo’s latest film Silent Night. I’ve long loved Woo’s films, particularly The Killer and his extraordinary epic Red Cliff, which I happily contend is one of the greatest films ever made—Kurosawa for the 21st century. His lesser known film (at least in the West) The Crossing was not quite at that level, but did provide a fascinating (and harrowing) look at the Chinese civil war, about which Westerners tend to know little.
Silent Night was not quite on par with Woo’s masterpieces, but it was an extraordinary film. In particular, it is almost entirely without dialogue, meaning that—like the great silent films—it is told entirely through visuals. This allows Woo to achieve maximum virtuosity. Many times, you wonder how he can possibly advance the plot without a line or two of dialogue, and then he does so with seemingly effortless brilliance. If, like me, you’re a devout lover of silent films, it’s a joy to watch.
This is the case even though the film itself is, in many ways, emotionally devastating. While Woo has long been known for his adrenaline-fueled depictions of violence and action, Silent Night demonstrates this talent in a remarkably mature manner. There’s plenty of gunplay, but the overall sense of the film is not that of vicarious thrills, but ultimate melancholy. One senses at the end that all of this carnage is not heroic but a devastating tragedy.
In particular, there is a moment near the end (no spoilers) that almost moved me to tears. I cannot think of another action film about which that could be said. Die Hard is a blast to watch, but you don’t weep at the end. You may at the end of Silent Night.
That alone is an extraordinary accomplishment for Woo, who deserves much better than he has gotten from American critics and especially the American film industry. He’s one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation and ought to be treated as such.
A very interesting and informative piece. Thank you 🙏
Excellent pieces, I especially liked the pithy way you have describing the “Axis of Antisemitism,” and your conversation about Algeria and the Haitian revolution is very astute. Progressive philosophy cannot handle the complexities of history, like how the Spanish conquistadors were mainly seen as liberators when they arrived in Mexico because of how oppressive the Aztec empire was. I have also been really struggling with how huge this issue is and how futile this work seems sometimes, do you have any suggestions or recommendations for how to deal with it or cope? I love your writing and appreciate that you are doing this work, and I hope it gets easier with time.