Israel Derangement Syndrome -- on both sides of the Atlantic
Yes, the kids are cos-playing revolutionaries. But don't lose sight of the adults that lead them here.
The affluent, coddled West continues to disgrace itself over Israel. Months after the pogrom of October 7, and in the week of Passover no less, we have witnessed petty, deranged, violent and downright idiotic actions on both sides of the Atlantic. My fellow goys — you are bringing shame on us all.
Here on the island of Ireland, we had what surely is one of the most spiteful and small-minded “protests” of all time. The Communications Workers Union of Ireland — that absolute pilar of moral leadership throughout the English speaking world — voted unanimously to allow its members, also known as postmen, to refuse to handle post coming from Israel.
Wow. I’m sure the IDF is shaking in its boots. Mossad must planning an Epstein-style blackmail scheme on the union leadership, as such towering figures of resistance must be brought to heel. I don’t know how the nation of Israel will be able to manage when its dozen or so pieces of mail to Ireland are left sitting in some postal sorting facility in the Irish midlands.1
Imagine having such contempt for an ethnicity that you would refuse to touch with your pristine hands a piece of paper that originated in that ethnicity’s homeland? And then — imagine being so dimwitted and self-regarding that you think this makes you the good guy?
All institutions of the left, in the English speaking world, are infected top to bottom with midwits who desperately need to pretend it’s the 1980’s and they are supporting the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. This is the end result of over fifty years of hagiographic portrayals of the post-war left. According to cultural representation, they could do no wrong. The ’68 generation were brave, they were smart, they were stylish. Or at least, that’s what was imprinted on subsequent impressionable generations of young people. Now, not surprisingly, young people want ‘to the barricades, comrade!’ moments of their own.
The Irish bourgeois left, in particular, has a chip on its shoulder in this regard. They had a “revolutionary army” on their very own soil, from the late sixties to the late 1990’s, and they failed to join forces with it. I’m old enough to remember the deep hostility most middle class people in the south felt about Northern Irish republicans. To be fair, the republicans were blowing up cleaning ladies and young English squaddies in the name of a united Ireland that citizens of the Republic of Ireland had no interest in.
Fast forward to 2024, and now being a revolutionary is cool and trendy. The Irish progressive-left professional managerial class don’t want to miss out on their chance this time. The cause of the Palestinians has the added benefit of being far enough away from Dublin’s leafy suburbs that it’s unlikely any Irish student radicals will end up dead.
The American left is considerably more alarming, because although its young people are definitely as thick, they are also infused with that American unearned confidence. Pair that with a justifiable rage that they are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a degree that will at best see them as some middling office drone for the rest of their lives, and you have a dangerous combo. And the educated youth of America has decided that their real enemy is…Zionism.
The footage from the ‘occupation’ of some of America’s most expensive and well-regarded colleges was simultaneously ridiculous and sinister, a Jew-hating sleep away camp for dorky theatre kids.
“We have Zionists entering our encampments,” said a student radical in Columbia University, while dozens of fellow protesters repeated the words in a truly hateful chant.
But because we are talking about medicalised, therapeutic, and childish American youth culture, the hate messaging is overlayed by a truly bizarre kindergarten vibe. Protesters dance like they are performing for their parents in a middle school talent show (see minute 43.21 of this video). The occupied zone in Columbia provides melatonin gummie sweets, board games, and nail painting. These are spoiled children. They are morons.
There is something incredibly scripted about all of this — and I wonder if the plot twist will be a remake of Kent State, with a pit-stop at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In a ‘you can’t make this up’ development, the 2024 Democratic National Convention will also be held in Chicago. Today’s US is arguably an even more tense and divided nation than it was in 1968. I find it hard to believe that the 2024 convention is not being deliberately set up for a similar confrontation. “Activists” already are planning for it, apparently. But they must have the tacit approval from the grown ups who stand to benefit in some way.
To be clear: I don’t think the American college protestors and dumb Irish trade unionists are fake crisis actors, nor do I think that anti-Semitism, which is the rock upon which Israel Derangement Syndrome is built — is not real. It’s very, very, real. But what I am saying is these protests, like the BLM protests in the run-up to the 2020 election (like the trans kids phenomenon, like basically all of woke behaviour) are not naturally occurring.
As the occupations have been spreading across the US throughout the week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Soros and the Rockefeller families have been providing grants to the anti-Israel protests. The New York Post also reported that “cash from Soros and his acolytes has been critical to the Columbia protests.” It went on: “At the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment,’ students sleep in tents apparently ordered from Amazon and enjoy delivery pizza, coffee from Dunkin’, free sandwiches from Pret a Manger, organic tortilla chips and $10 rotisserie chickens.”
Sound like a lot more fun than studying for finals.
Even though these protests are astro-turfed by malevolent tycoons, the terrible behaviour being exhibited by western youth culture is still significant. Because it wouldn’t have worked unless the culture had been already taken over by Neo-Maoism. In fact, this is something that students themselves have pointed out, proving that maybe they are not all dummies. They are just following the diktats that their commie elders have passed on to them. In one interview, (at the five minute mark) a mask-and-kaffiyeh wearing young woman complained about the treatment she and her fellow protestors were receiving from Columbia, saying administrators were “bluffing”. “The way they were treating us was as if we were strangers in our own campus, as if they haven’t been teaching us what we’ve been applying here at this encampment.”
Bingo. The Boomer and Gen X champagne revolutionaries in the professional managerial class — from academia to philanthropy to cultural production — planted these seeds. Their fruit? Chaos, discord, and distraction.
It is in the interest of several different parties to sow chaos and social strife in the United States, to the point where the United States breaks down. As this James Lindsay deep dive into the worldview of George Soros makes clear, the billionaire wants a kind of uni-party world order that cannot be achieved as long as the nation of America remains a hegemonic power.2 There are also America’s nation-state enemies with their own agendas, chief among them, China. Which is why I found it so interesting that Nancy Pelosi, when she was ambushed a few months ago by pro-Palestinian youth groups, told her those accosting her: "go back to China, that’s where your headquarters are." That sounds to me like an allegation that China might also be paying some of these protestors. Or maybe it’s just Nancy Pelosi’s addled brain.
I cannot say which among these villains is the most powerful and effective in orchestrating the American chaos of today, or to what degree they might be working together. But these social eruptions must always be viewed in a context that includes two all-important factors: a wide-open border that the Biden administration is fighting to keep open, across which untold numbers of Chinese and other nationalities military aged men have crossed into US territory; and an American parenting culture that has created a critical mass of emotionally vulnerable young people who have little of the physical and mental strength that past civilisations have relied upon to keep themselves strong.
It’s very possible that some of my readers might feel Israel deserves the international opprobrium. I would simply refer them to the Twitter account of one Andrew Fox, who wrote:
“That’s war. And that’s what Israel is fighting, on a far more brutal scale. Hamas and the surrounding Iranian proxies are an existential threat to Israel’s existence as a country. It’s that which people in the West fail to understand. We’re used to expeditionary wars of choice on the other side of the world. Israel has kibbutzim 5km from where their troops are fighting. The IDF in Gaza can look over their shoulders and see their home. It’s a totally different perspective on war from the one we in the West are used to.”
According to Lindsay’s podcast episode on Soros’s book, the Chinese Communist Party hate him and call him a ‘demon.’
When you're on "the right side of history" anything is justified... These people have no moral compass to guide them. They just drift, and glom onto whatever is trending on Tik Tok. If the algos changed, you could find the same citizens out protesting against Hamas next month. There is no reasoning or thought behind this, I suspect, it's just follow the leader. Pathetic. This is such a lame side of humanity.
Another great piece. I really appreciate your incisive analysis and style. I also appreciate your inclusion of a critique of American parenting styles and the "kindergarten vibe" observation. I'm watching all of this in disbelief but then I have also been baffled by how colleagues and friends are raising their kids - constant affirmation and acceptance. We talk to youth (up to 28 years old) as if we are in a pediatric therapy session - asking where they feel things in their bodies or what color might represent their feelings, etc. It's bizarre and cult-like. It teaches nothing about self regulation or growing up. Then they become unhinged and dangerous as we are seeing. And still, parents will affirm.....