Hamas, Long Beach State & White Guilt

Hi all,

I know that the last several days have been disturbing for most of you. I had a full Saturday planned as a chauffeur for my kids and was not expecting to see those images of slaughtered Jews upon waking up. The more details I found out — para-gliders, a weapons van strategically planted outside the rave, coordinated assaults, executions — the more horrific it became. Most of us lived through the peace efforts of the past several decades and this attack by Hamas drove a stake through whatever lingering hopes there may have been for peace.

The attack was so barbaric that I was reminded of a quote from “Niccolo’s Smile,” a biography on Machiavelli by Maurizio Viroli:

“There are times when fortune inflicts wounds that simply won’t heal, when the story of life breaks into two distinct sections, a before and an after. Those who experience this sort of caesura discover that from a certain day on they are no longer the same person, they suffer an anguish they have never felt before, they discover personal resources they did not know existed, and they see the world and their fellow humans in a new and chilly light. They may find that they are stronger; they may find that they are more vulnerable; in any case, they find that they are different.”

I think I’ve always carried this quote with me because it speaks to the power that humans possess within to recover or emerge from the unspeakable, and with wisdom. But what about the people who refuse to change, who refuse to allow an atrocity to force themselves into a reckoning with their lives and beliefs?

Then I received the below poster from a friend:

The poster was created when Israelis were still finding more bodies. The image of a terrorist para-glider recasted as a freedom fighter was quite the in-your-face statement.

Against my better judgement, I drove down to Long Beach State yesterday to see the pro-Hamas rally for myself. Strangely, it was La F.U.E.R.Z.A (formerly known as La Raza) that sponsored the rally. I brought my camera since I had a feeling that the footage could be used for the White Guilt documentary.

When I arrived on campus, it was idyllic. Students laying around the quad as they did homework and waited for class. Then the protestors emerged from the arts building and began screaming through their bullhorns — one heard “genocide” over and over and I am sure they were not referring to the dead Jews. I could not quite hear their chants in full since 99% of them wore masks to conceal their identities. (Despite their DEI bonafides, they were not inclusive of my need to lipread.)

Then they started marching throughout the campus as they shouted cliches: No justice, no peace! By any means necessary! Free Palestine! After 15 minutes, we arrived at the designated spot where the protestors would make their speeches.

The first speaker took the bullhorn and quickly set the tone: there would be no empathy for the dead — could there really be any empathy for the dead in a rally held only days later? You can listen to the first speaker in this four minute clip:

(If you wish to hear more speakers, here is the link to my Twitter/X post.)

There was a sociopathic righteousness to the speakers’ voices as they recasted Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters” and offered up historical justification for the violence- “when people are colonized, resistance is justified.” (Yes, Hamas was merely resisting last Saturday, as if that was not clear enough.) The problem was that their version of history was grounded in the leftist ideology that reduces everything to the absurd oppressed/oppressor narrative. How can one logically argue with an ideological version of history?

I left after one hour into what was supposed to be a three hour rally. As I drove home, I thought what was the point of all that shouting and chanting? I was about to dismiss it as performative when it became crystal clear: the objective of the protest was to declare to the world that they were not changing their beliefs and they were not going anywhere. There would be no reformation of sorts. Unlike the above Viroli quote, which assumes the ability of humans to be touched by life’s wounds, these students would not allow themselves to be moved by Saturday’s horror. They would remain steadfast in their sameness for their long ideological march must continue unabated.

More disturbing, there was not one authority on campus that stood up to these students effectively. It must be noted that the pushback against what happened last Saturday began on university campuses nationwide. This pushback didn’t happen under the cover of darkness but right out in the open. Many university presidents who tripped over themselves to bend their knees before Black Lives Matter offered up rather tepid statements in response to Hamas’ terror. While I have always been at odds with these leftists, their actions after Saturday revealed their true nature and “(I) now see the world and (my) fellow humans in a new and chilly light.”

My father saw this decades ago. Much to his shame, he was one of the first to establish black studies departments across America. This was in the early 1970s and he believed that black studies would be integrated within the existing academic departments. However, when he realized that these departments would be segregated homes to liberation ideologies and heavily focused on developing racial and ethnic identities/ideologies, he broke rank.

What largely came out of those departments was not any kind of enlightenment that advanced society in general, but racial constructs that divide us: white privilege, intersectionality, oppressed-oppressor, white supremacy, white fragility, and on. These skin-deep constructs relied on white guilt to advance their destructive ideologies throughout America’s institutions. What I saw yesterday and what people have been reporting on college campuses across America since Saturday should be a warning to all of us to not give another inch to these ideologies.

Lastly, I want to end this piece with a word from Batya Ungar-Sargon, who we interviewed for the White Guilt documentary back in July. After remaining silent on X/Twitter for several days she wrote her thoughts which I thought could be applied to the student protestors whitewashing Saturday’s horror:

When they demand context, that you accede to a moral equivalency between rape, murder of children, kidnapping of the elderly, desecration of the dead—and those trying to stop it, they are asking you to close the gap between yourself and the barbaric animals who did those things.

They are asking you to nullify the natural horror a person has witnessing unthinkable evil in its purest form—a person committing an atrocity as their victim screams in pain and terror, begging for life. In demanding "context" they are asking you to sacrifice your very humanity.

All my best,

Eli

P.S. please forgive any typos - I wanted to get this out before leaving town to attend a wedding. Also, a huge thank you to all the subscribers. I have not been able to respond to many of you personally but I see your notes and am truly appreciative.