Send a Message to the Haters

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Writers rely on the intelligence of their audiences. We assume a certain baseline literacy, vocabulary, comprehension, and reasoning ability. We try not to insult readers by asking them to accept something that offends logic, experience, or common sense. If humor is our intention, we try not to be facetious without also being clever. If satire or irony is our game, we hope for an audience with a modicum of wit, so that we are not misunderstood and that we do not offend.

If we are trying to persuade, we try to avoid arguments that could be accepted only by the very stupid or overly credulous.

In my last blog, I tried to poke fun at antisemites by, tongue in cheek, confessing my personal responsibility for every misdemeanor, sin, outrage, and bad behavior of which Jews are accused. I had hoped that the sheer silliness of the notion that I, or my coreligionists, could be guilty of all those horrible, frequently contradictory, charges, would demonstrate how idiotic and vacuous antisemites are.

It turns out that I am the stupid one. I had forgotten exactly how idiotic and vacuous antisemites can be. It appears that no argument is too absurd to appeal to people who hate Jews.

So I am going to propose a different response. Ridicule doesn’t work.

Candace Owens (podcast 3.6 million downloads; youtube channel 5.7 million subscribers) says that a French team has been dispatched to assassinate her, that Israelis (possibly in cahoots with Erika Kirk) killed Charlie Kirk, that Jews controlled the slave trade, and that Jews learn from the Talmud to think that black people are animals who may be lied to, stolen from, and deceived.

In this brave, new world of non-journalism, facts don’t matter. More black Africans than Jews were involved in the slave trade, Jews made enormous contributions to the cause of black civil rights in the United States, black slavery still exists in Muslim Sudan and Somalia, the Talmud stands for no such thing, Boko Haram, rumored not to be a Jewish sect, kills black Christian children in Nigeria every day…but why go on? She can repeat her vicious, stupid lies and antisemites will believe her.

There is no sanction for being an unprincipled, deceitful, immoral liar, if your target is Israel or Jews.

And then it goes to the next level, and the next, where you must ask yourself, who listens to that crap? Who could possibly believe that drivel? Is there really an audience so blind, so uncritical, ignorant and imbecilic that they will accept anything at all, so long as it fits the anti-Jewish narrative?

Before you answer, consider the following two examples:

In an act they label cultural resilience rather than ahistorical nonsense, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee placed two billboards in Times Square to the effect that Jesus was a Palestinian. They wanted to reclaim what they termed a fundamental truth, honoring the “Palestinian refugee born in Bethlehem.”

I’m not that quick on the uptake, so I need to process new ideas slowly, step by step.  Bear with me.

So Jesus was a Palestinian, born during an occupation. OK. That would make Mary, Joseph, and all the other indigenous inhabitants of the land, previously identified as Jews, Palestinians. The Pharisees? Palestinians. The Rabbis in the Sanhedrin? Palestinians. The money-changers in the Temple? Palestinians. The Apostles?  Palestinians.

The loaves and the fish? Possibly provided by UNRWA. Or perhaps hijacked by Hamas to create the illusion of a famine.

And, presumably, if Jesus was Palestinian, born during an occupation, the occupying power (labeled by history as Romans) had to have been…Jews. The Roman Legions were the IDF. Pontius Pilate was Itamar Ben-Gvir. Caesar was Bibi.

No matter that Christians have always believed that Jesus was descended from the Judean dynasty of King David. No matter that Christian Crusaders fought and died in the name of Jesus to expel Muslims from the Holy Land. No matter that Jesus himself proclaims himself loyal to the law of Moses.

Not history. Not the truth. So what?

Historically challenged is bad. Morally bankrupt is disgusting. They say that if Jesus were to have been born today, he would have been imprisoned by the IDF. How can those who support savages make that claim while the pictures of the Bibas boys are still etched in our brains? Isn’t it more likely that the Jewish infant born today would be in danger of being kidnapped by Arab terrorists, held hostage, and killed?

Logic doesn’t matter. Truth doesn’t matter. They will do anything. They will say anything.

Because, if you are an antisemite, everything is crystal clear. Israel, victorious on the field of battle, unified in its just cause, and justified in every action it has taken, is defenseless against these depraved liars, who know that people will believe that Israel is evil if you have enough oil money to rent a billboard in Times Square.  Thanks, Qatar.

It doesn’t stop there. Matt Gaetz, who was revealed by a House Ethics inquiry to have spent tens of thousands of dollars on underage prostitutes, drugs, and other violations of law, resigned from the House about a year ago, in November 2024. The Committee issued a 37-page report. One year ago. You could read it. It is very ugly, concluding that he engaged in sexual misconduct, drug use, improper financial activity, and obstruction. He was found to have violated state law, as well as House ethics standards.

The report is based on testimony, financial records, text messages, and travel receipts. Gaetz refused to cooperate, refused to produce requested documents, and declined to be interviewed.

The report does not mention Israel. Why, you wonder, would it?

Well, because Gaetz has just revealed that he was the victim of an Israeli undercover operation. The whole thing was a plot engineered by AIPAC, Israel, and the Jews.

Facts no longer matter.

Matt Gaetz revealed this plot to (who else?) Tucker Carlson, the man who unmasked Ben Shapiro as an agent of Israel and enemy of the United States. Tucker also says that the Israelis have murdered tens of thousands of Palestinian children and, by the way, Tucker just bought a place in Qatar.

I was going to cite some of the absurd things about Hitler, Churchill, Nazis, Jews, and Israelis that guests of Tucker Carlson said on his podcast without contradiction, as he nodded and giggled, but it is so fatiguing, and, as noted, to what point? He will continue and his audience will credulously believe.

One final item: Carlson said he doesn’t know anyone in the US in the last 24 years who’s been killed by radical Islam. Charles Kurzman, a Professor at the University of North Carolina, has identified 162 people in the US who have been killed by Muslim-American violent extremists since 9/11, including 13 killed in the Fort Hood shooting (Nidal Hassan, Texas, 2009), three killed and hundreds wounded in the Boston Marathon bombing (Tsarnaev brothers, 2013), five US servicemen killed at the Chattanooga Military Recruiting Center (Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 2015), and 49 killed in the Orlando Pulse Nightclub attack (Omar Mateen, 2016).

It is probably true that Tucker didn’t know any of them. Or any of the hundreds of Americans who died at the hands of radical Islam overseas. But you would think that his audience would know and that they would believe their own experience rather than his nonsense.

No such luck. And from our own perspective, unfortunately, one becomes accustomed, inured, and desensitized to the filthy nonsense that they promote. So we stand by, shake our heads in disbelief and despair, and complain to our friends.

Enough.

I admit that I do not know of any effective tactic that will stop these people or have a meaningful effect. Candace Owens probably believes the nonsense she spouts.  Matt Gaetz is a reprobate who will say anything to absolve himself. Tucker Carlson has already sold his soul. Nevertheless, standing by and doing nothing should no longer be an option, because it makes us appear either totally acquiescent or even complicit in the evil being perpetrated against us.

Therefore, I propose the following. Find out (Google, ChatGPT, and other search devices will help) who sponsors the podcasts or newsletters or other channels by which the attacks by Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson against Israel and Jews are being transmitted. Then write (or organize a local campaign to write) an email to those sponsors, explaining that you are a believer in freedom of speech; that you understand that people have the right to say harmful and dangerous things, even lies; that you also have the right to withhold your business from the people who encourage, support and facilitate the distribution of those lies; and that you will no longer do business with them as long as they sponsor the haters.

Tell all your friends to do the same.

It may not move the needle; most of their revenue probably comes from subscriptions paid by true believers, and the main advertisers appear to be ideological supporters or driven purely by algorithm. But maybe it will help you sleep better if you voice your complaint and act on it. And if it catches on and becomes viral, maybe someone will notice.

If you do it and receive a response, let me know. Perhaps a topic for future blogs. If you want, or don’t want, me to use your name, please advise.

But do it. Send a message to the haters. It might make you feel a bit better.