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Jonathan Salinas

Rage Is Not a Sign of Confidence

 

News footage screenshot of Philadelphia Pride parade being impeded by Hamas demonstrators, 8 July 2024.

Shameless exhibitions of rage and insanity at Hamas rallies betray a deep sense of insecurity, lack of confidence, in their purported positions.

Day of rage. The term was introduced, within this current context, in the immediate days after the October 2023 pogrom. A 13 October 2023 article by ABC News titled, “Hamas ‘Day of Rage’ protests break out in Middle East and beyond”, was also subtitled, “Israelis have been urged to take extra caution.” The ensuing rage, and the need to “take extra caution,” no doubt came, and not just for Israeli Jews, nor just the Middle East.

It resurfaced recently, with the targeting of New York City museums and their Jewish leadership, in what “pro-Palestinian” pogromists called “a citywide day of rage.” This hysterical attitude, consistently expressed since Oct 7 shows a lack of confidence in their purported positions. By contrast the humanity and decency expressed by Israel’s friends worldwide, alongside the honorable, heroic and dignifying performance of Israel’s defense forces, embodies the confidence of knowing that one is on the right side, as well as the winning side. One side praises life, the other praises death.

The high-point of unhinged behavior in these Hamas protests came during the end-of-semester encampments of this past spring. Like in the screeching cries of those who exclaimed, “we’re peaceful”, not caring to notice the increased security threat to pro-Israel (“Zionist”) students, particularly Jews, on campuses around the United States, namely in the “Ivy Leagues”. Nor the fact that facility workers at Columbia were assaulted and held hostage for several minutes, when Hamilton Hall was violently overtaken by mobs.

After Columbia administrators finally allowed the New York Police Department to intervene, the occupiers, who were being escorted like the sheep that they are, detained in zip ties as they were, onto buses, looked down onto the cement, downcast, demoralized. Their friends, who’d dodged arrest, chanted, in consolation, as they were escorted away, hoping to cheer them up. Nothing worked. You could tell that, in the back of their minds, they knew they’d suffered a defeat and made no difference on the military battlefield, which was their actual delusional aim.

Another sign of this insecurity lies in the semi-straight faces of Hamas’ friends in the media, who try their darndest to convince rational people that the Gaza-based jihadist network Israel is fighting to destroy, can be honestly dealt with. Take for instance American journalist, Abby Martin, who is a longtime opponent of Israel and sympathizer of Hamas. She was on Piers Morgan’s show April 2. When asked how the war in Gaza should end, she replied, “How does it end? By a negotiated settlement, immediately. I think what Hamas is offering is not beyond the pale. It would be easy for Israel to comply with the demands.” Really? Comply with Hamas’ demands? Something communicated she didn’t really believe what she was saying.

Morgan later asked, after her full response, if she thought Hamas should remain in power after the war, later asking if she condemned them in any way. She of course wouldn’t answer directly. However, her above reply (regarding how the war should end) was, in its own way, an indirect answer to Morgan’s seemingly unanswered inquiries.

The desperate attempts to throw Hamas a lifeline extend beyond just rioters and voluntary propagandists, they also extend to the unpopular European governments intervening on the side of Hamas, despite their pretentions of neutrality and fairhandedness. Perhaps the lowest point of political adventurism, in this virtue signaling realm, came from Dublin, where the Irish Premier announced his country’s recognition of a Palestinian state. The cynical and opportunistic move was led by the unelected Tik Tok celebrity, Simon Harris, a longtime government bureaucrat who “became” Ireland’s “youngest head of state” (à la Rishi Sunak) after Leo Varadkar suddenly stepped down on my 33rd birthday, 20 March 2024, in light of criticisms against his government’s immigration policies, which have imported Islamist terrorism, on top of an unforgiving housing crisis that has Irish working- and middle-class residents on the edge. Harris admitted recently that the reunification of Ireland, for example, “shouldn’t be a priority”, thus being more in favor of a “reunification of Palestine” than of Ireland. The move to “recognize a Palestinian state” was therefore just a distraction from their domestic political crisis, cheap opportunism as opposed to principled solidarity, as Harris himself has subtly acknowledged his party will not win the next elections.

Dublin was joined in the spectacle by Madrid and Oslo. Unlike Harris, Spanish Premier, Pedro Sanchez, was sort of elected. I say “sort of” because Spain’s prime minister is appointed by the King, albeit he “usually” appoints the head of the coalition with the most parliamentary seats. In this case, Pedro Sánchez’s social-democratic “Socialist Workers Party” came in second place in Spain’s most recent parliamentary elections, currently leading a minority coalition with smaller liberal parties.

Sanchez’ current government has been marred by crisis–first to form a coalition and second in deciding if he should remain in power, after his wife was accused in a Spanish civil court of “influence-peddling”, in a suit brought by opposition watchdog groups in April. Upon entering office, Sanchez’s government also faced large and sustained protests, over an amnesty he agreed to, involving Catalan separatists under criminal prosecution for their roles in participating in a referendum on independence in 2018, which Madrid had deemed illegal. Sanchez actually ordered the arrests during his first term as Premier, consisting of brutal and notorious riot police repression at polling sites that was condemned by many at the time. Again, no Catalan (or Basque) statehood in Spain, says the Prime Minister, but Palestinian statehood, yes? The separatist regions of Spain hold regular and transparent elections, whereas the “Palestinian Authority” hasn’t held one in almost 20 years.

April last, in a politically opportunistic move to stay in power, after losing snap elections to Spain’s right-wing parties, Sanchez promised to undo his earlier work of prosecuting Catalan independence leaders. This reversal was seen by many Spanish citizens as unconstitutional and therefore illegitimate, taking to the streets for days, following the formation of his current coalition. The Catalan independence parties who joined Sanchez lost seats in May’s regional elections. Sanchez’s party was outperformed by the conservative “People’s Party”, who now holds most of the seats in Parliament. Minority Spanish Party, Vox, who recently hosted Argentinian President, Javier Milei, at a libertarian conference that included right-wing political parties from around the globe as well as Spanish industrial capitalists, came third in European elections within Spain, after Sanchez’s Socialist Party. The conservative Christian Democrats won dozens of seats in the European Parliament earlier this month, becoming the European bloc with the most Parliamentary seats, and becoming the power brokers in forming a new commission. In France, the performance of the populist, Front National, caused Emmanuel Macron, whose term “ends” in 2027, to dissolve parliament and call snap elections, which will likely lead to the long-anticipated, long-postponed election of Marine Le Pen. And as I went to print, it was just announced that Prime Minister Sunak has called for 4 July snap elections, for the same reason as Macron. Does anybody, including Sanchez, believe he’ll actually remain in power much longer?

In Norway–as in Ireland and Spain–again, the country is governed by a center-left minority coalition, in this case led by Jonas Gahr Store of the Labour Party, who is in a minority government with the Centre Party. Norway’s foreign ministry has been warning in recent days that the Palestinian Authority, with whom it “closely works,” is “warning” of “impending collapse,” which Norwegian Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide, warned would be “terrible for everybody, including the people of Israel.” Was that a threat? Plus, is Norway now admitting to having “recognized” a “government” that they’re now saying is “on the verge of collapse”?

The three–not “countries”, as is so commonly misreported, but–unpopular and unstable governments, who “recognized a Palestinian state” this past May, just like the so-called “arrest warrants” against Israel’s actually-elected Prime Minister (as Israel has no king), as well as the withering university protests and delusional journalists sympathetic to Hamas, unsuccessfully altered the course on the battlefield via the realm of international politics and diplomacy, which again was their primary intention. While Hamasniks hailed the announcements from Dublin and Oslo, offering them a short-lived psychological high for their rageful riots, Israeli victories on the ground however continue giving them more and more cause for desperation, as they should.

About the Author
Jonathan Salinas is a writer, activist, musician and poet based in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. He's written for several news outlets, online and print, and currently writes on Substack.com.
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