Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
There is something surreal, even sick about the current Gazan war.
Throughout European and American cities and campuses, tens of thousands of Middle East immigrants and students, and radical leftists chant nonstop “Free Palestinian from the River to the Sea.”
More recently, they are also yelling, “Israel, you can’t hide, we caught you in genocide.”
Consider the hypocrisy of that dual messaging.
Hamas and its supporters are openly and eagerly calling for the genocidal end of Israel by wiping it out from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Yet at the same time they also claim it is Israel that is committing genocide—the very current self-described agenda of Hamas and its expatriate community of devotees!
The war has become crazier still.
Hamas and its megaphones abroad also blast Israel daily for retaliating for the October butchery of some 1,300 Israeli infants, children, women, and the elderly.
They further demand Israel must be selective in its airborne targeting of the Hamas killers, who burrow beneath hospitals, mosques, and hospitals and use civilians as shields.
Hamas takes for granted that a supposedly heartless Israel nevertheless will be reluctant to strike the Hamas terrorists when and if they are surrounded by civilians.
Indeed, Gazans are put in more danger by Hamas than they would otherwise be by the Israel Defense Forces.
Yet the world accepts that Israel itself would never employ such a ruse of using civilians to shield its cities from indiscriminately fired Hamas missiles.
The world further knows that if Israel ever employed such a barbaric tactic, Israeli civilian shields would attract—not deter—Hamas rockets.
Hamas’s apologists insist that Israel warn in advance civilians to keep clear of Israel bombs.
Yet at the same time, daily Hamas launches rockets into Israel. And no one in the international community lectures Hamas first to drop leaflets or text Israeli civilians that Hamas rockets are on their way into their vicinity.
Instead, the only purpose of Hamas rockets is to indiscriminately strike and kill Israeli civilians.
So the real issue is not about the principle of civilian deaths—given Israel is damned when it tries to avoid noncombatants and Hamas is cheered on when it deliberately targets them.
Instead, the asymmetry is explained by the efficacy of the Israeli response and impotence of the Hamas rocketry.
In other words, Hamas cannot stop the IDF from hitting its targets, while Israel can knock down far more Hamas rockets than blow up Israeli citizens.
And so Israel is being blamed for being too effective—or “disproportionate”— in its bombing, Hamas rewarded for being too ineffective in its rocketing.
There are other sick paradoxes in this war.
Hamas started the conflict by sending death squads of 2,000 killers into Israel at a time of peace to surprise murder more than 1,000 Israeli civilians.
There was no precivilizational, unspeakable atrocity that the butcherers did not commit—torture, beheading, rape, mutilation, and necrophilia.
The terrorists were followed into Israel by a multitude of opportunistic Gaza civilians, who in turn joined in the violence and looting.
Back in Gaza crowds reviled and tried to harm Israeli captives bound as hostages to trade for jailed terrorists in Israel.
In sum, the population that once elected Hamas into power, and cheered on its bloodletting—as long as there was yet no Israeli response—now claims to have no connection at all with Hamas. Yet the world assumes correctly that the people of Israel are inseparable from its military.
The surreal paradoxes of this war still do not end there.
In its mass murdering spree of October 7, Hamas butchered more than 30 American citizens, and perhaps another 13 still are unaccounted for—and are likely hostages inside the tunnels of Hamas in Gaza.
Yet the Biden administration has not forced Hamas to return kidnapped Americans, much less responded to its killing of U.S. citizens.
Why then despite all the rhetoric of solidarity, is the United States constantly pressuring Israel to be measured in its retaliation against the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, pressure that will only make things easier on Hamas?
Why are we seeking to restrain those who are trying to destroy the killers of Americans, and indirectly aiding those who murdered them?
And why is the global elite community siding with the murderous aggressors and not those seeking justice for the murdered?
Lots of reasons.
There are 500 million Arabs in the world, and nearly 2 billion Muslims—but only 9 or so million Israelis.
Nearly fifty percent of the world’s oil reserves are found in the Muslim Middle East.
Westerners, like tiny Israel, are considered too rich and powerful, while non-Westerners are romanticized as blameless, victimized underdogs.
But the best way of understanding this sick war is that Israelis are Jews and the ancient plague of anti-Semitism is again sweeping the globe.
I agree with everything you said and I always love when you speak it is always truthful, however there is a biblical component to this and that is God will not abandon the Jewish people. Throughout scripture he has come to there calls for help. I don’t see how the radical terrorists win this. God always has a plan but in the end he will save all of the people who are faithful to him Jew and gentile.
Amen
Sadly though Deborah, the Jewish people of Israel are not calling out to their Creator as “their rock and their salvation” as much as they are praying to their political leaders for their salvation. Hopefully the people of Israel will turn more to their religion than their history for the support they want and need.
when did god start that process of saving “all of the people who are faithful to him jew and gentile”?
i am 75 and i have been studied history all my life. leaving aside gentiles for the moment ans using published and accepted numbers for the purpose of discussion….have you been able to come up with a satisfactory number of the 6,000,000 jews who were slaughtered in ww2 that were faithful yet not saved? same question goes for the 54,000,000 non jews who died during that chaos. perhaps i am assuming too much and you actually believe that all those 6,000,000 jews murdered in ww2 were NOT faithful and deserved their fate regardless of age or life’s circumstance. what say you?
The saving is not temporal. This is salvation. Heaven, rather than hell. Life is short. The life of the soul is forever.
Donald, you’re 75 and don’t yet know how to capitalize?
👍
Man, did you totally wiff that one.
A Chabad Rabbi recently said that anti-Semitism always was, it is, it will be, so accept it as part of the divine plan. But, my Rabbi adds, Jews must also defend themselves physically, and pray for the safety of the Israeli Defence Forces.
At least Israel is unified, and fights to survive; I’m no longer sure that the West has the will to survive culturally or physically.
Deborah, In the spirit of Dr Hanson’s remarks, this is kind of silly. God abandoned the Jews during the Holocaust and appears to have abandoned them now. An old story goes that “yes, we the Jews are the Chosen People”. Perhaps God could choose someone else now. There is nothing biblical about this except in harkening back to ancient hatreds and feuds. Sorry, I just couldn’t let this go.
You should’ve been genuinely sorry and let it go because ignorance runs rampant in your post.
Correct
I would really like to hear VDH’s take on the roots of antisemitism.
Amen!!!
Deborah- I agree with you and you have raised an important point, albeit spiritual in nature, that is underappreciated by many.
I am certainly not a religious scholar, merely a Christian believer that understands the significance of both Old and New Testament text.
One can also refer to the Book of Genesis, Noah and the Flood (6:9 -22) to ponder the current state of our world that rejects God’s relationship with humanity. Our present world certainly seems to be repeating ancient history in many ways.
Just as the Church is the bride of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and will prevail the attacks against it, so too will the Holy Land of Israel. Radical Islamic terrorists have hijacked and perverted the Muslim faith to declare that Israel must be eliminated. They have chosen war over peace.
Although, even with a “victory” by the IDF in this war, the many enemies of Israel will incur a great deal of suffering and loss upon the Jews in their homeland. What occurs in the U.S. against American Jews is yet to be determined. Can’t believe what I am now witnessing here!
We have yet again, crossed the Rubicon and there is no going back to a time prior to 10/7/23…….God help us all.
Great article. You’ve put into succinct form the paradoxes that are felt on the surface but were hard to pin down
God gave the Jews a DNA advantage of an average IQ of 115 and the Muslims an average IQ of 83 (also DNA) (see The Bell Curve by Charles Murry). This gives the Jews a 32-point (IQ) advantage in battle strategy and everything else. This is a good part of why the Jews always win.
This is the best article I have seen about the Israeli war, this is what I have noticed since October 7
Just when you think the world can’t get crazier it goes there, led by our own feckless anti-American politicians. I believe that many of the people protesting in support of Hamas are paid to be there. It doesn’t matter… antisemitism must be crushed.
Thanks Victor. You make too much sense! Rarely, if ever, are you attacked on a logical or factual basis. Your invertebrate, eager detractors have to satisfy their cravings with misplaced apostrophes and the sporadic grammatical error. Thankfully, they are in the extreme minority! Please continue your assault on all things woke, marxist and the self-absorbed elites. .
Yes, sick . . . and unfathomably evil.
Islam is an irredeemable midEVIL, incompatible with freedom, indivualism, and tolerance – in short: the modern West. It’s a parasitic cancer, fatally metastizing any host suicidally foulish enough to let it in and get infected, and soon to be infested by it. Due to leftist autoimmune disease, the West is dying from this muslim flu! Only a rapid and brutal chemotherapy, expelling this anti-modern virus, immediately supressing its viral load, could save us! But even more, as anti-modern Islam disqualifies for any access to modern achievements, muslim countries need to get their wish and ruthlessly “decolonized”: strip them of EVERY modern accomplishment from the West! No internet, no tv, no radio, no electricity at all, no planes, no cars, not even a bicycle, no modern housing (or weaponry!), not even steam engines,… nor glasses for that matter, no clean water and above all: no modern medicine! Anti-modern barbarians deserve pre-modern life expectancy and most importantly: pre-modern fertility – in short: a pre-modern population size! Israel should begin this process with Gaza and make sure it only has as tiny a population size as barbarians can derive from these few square miles – if not even finally make the Gazans taste their own medicine and PUSH THEM INTO THE SEA!
Warm greetings from Israel. Thank you once
again for your unwavering support.
Kill or be killed. Israel has the right to defend themselves.
Everyone must watch the movie Battle of Algers 1954 to understand what Hamas is doing once again.
It is on YouTube, if it hasn’t been taken down yet.
yes a very good flick that hits hard the reality of evil.
Revelation chapter 12 portrays Satan’s hostility towards Israel at the end of this age. Satan has an unquenchable desire to destroy the Jewish people and uses men as his instrument just as he used Herod the king to attempt to destroy in the infant Jesus by massaquering all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:13-18). Antisemitism will continue.
You thank American leftist professors, public school teachers and social media such as Tick-Tock for the protests here. I do suspect that CAIR, BLM, Antifa, and other groups have colluded to inflame things within these protests and organize more. The teaching of valuing life and the God who created it has been diminished for years in our societies standards and norms.
The Nazi’s are the one’s who have accused us of being Nazi’s. A standard M.O. of Satan himself. Communism is also one of his big clubs.
No apostrophes in that plural. Nazis—probably even in German! As for Hamas, take Mendelssohn’s advice from Elijah: “Take all the Prophets of Baal/Hamas / Let none of them escape you / Take all and slay them!!
I do believe that Israelis have had enough of this double standard from abroad. The ropes upon their arms have become like flax that is burned with fire and the bonds have broke loose from their hands
we will see if they have “had enough” but the one overriding aspect that is never discussed…biden and that gut with three islamic names are NOT the friends of israel or jews. unless or until jews wake up to that reality, their future will always be in doubt.
Was the three named Texan a better friend to Levi Eshkol? I think no; lied to him repeatedly and would not stand firm on the Tiran Straits. Israel had no real friends, the U.S. was not resupplying them As it turned out, the Sling of David prevailed.
This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
Now there is today’s problem.
It’s also human nature to attack Jews, the Chosen People. Boris Pasternak, Russian-Jewish author of “Dr. Zhivago,” made this point and appealed to Jews to assimilate.
Why is the Muslim religion the only religion that persecutes and murders others in the name of religion? I haven’t heard in my lifetime of any other religion that teaches it’s followers to murder Christians, Jews, Mormons, Lutherans, Amish, etc., etc., even different sects of Muslims. They immigrate to non-muslim countries and bring with them their hate and irrational ideology and do not assimilate with the host countries, only to create a “mini-society” from which they fled from. The insanity of allowing immigration from Muslim countries must end and massive deportation of those who immigrate unlawfully be returned to their country of origin. Those foreigners holding work or education visas who violate our laws must be returned to their countries immediately. Extreme? Perhaps, but let them protest in their homeland, not ours.
Agree. It’s an anti-civilizational, Medievil mindset. Whenever any group of people achieve critical mass, behavioral patterns emerge with little incentive to assimilate. Germany’s moving to deport these people, to include revoking citizenship granted.
Islam is only major religion not to experience a reformation. Let the U.N. call for a summit to address the violence & destructiveness of radical Muslims; otherwise, nations should withdraw from U.N. and form new League of Democratic Nations.
The Muslims believe they are the One true religion. Therefore, if you are a Muslim, you are a Believer. If you are not a Believer, you are considered an Infidel. An Infidel deserves to die. Most religions in the world do not practice this barbarian type of reasoning. I’ve been a protestant all my adult life and the thought of taking the life of a Catholic, a Satan Worshipper, or a Muslim would never enter my mind……..UNLESS, they were trying to take me out.
You remind me of a recent statement by Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana who, to paraphrase, said he has 3 rules: 1.) He only seeks to hurt others that hurt him; 2.) He doesn’t steal; and, 3.) He wants to be left alone. The guy’s a character, most wise.
I am Jewish. Born in Toronto in 1953. My mother, born in Toronto in 1917 would tell me what it was like being Jewish when she was growing up. I would almost always say/think ” ancient history, not here, can’t happen”. I guess my mother was right. Small consolation is that this time around there is a Jewish state with a decent sized nuclear arsenal and with that comes the belief that the rubble will glow in the dark for 10,000 years. Never again indeed
Pulls out the ole “Anti-semitism”… VDH: I think you lost me.
In the 100 yrs of the Punic wars, Rome destroyed Carthage, then plowed it under with salt. Carthage was never from again. nuf said.
20 years ago, a gentile rented a property from a jewish man. He converted it into a child day care centre and put most of his life savings into the project; around a million dollars – took him a year of hard work. But the rental contract was for two years without an extension built in. The contract renewal was refused, even after a personal appeal to him on moral grounds, and leased to another for a significant increase in rent. A bitter lifelong enemy was created. Salt can lose it’s flavor – a warning unheeded?
The Muslims believe they are the One true religion. Therefore, if you are a Muslim, you are a Believer. If you are not a Believer, you are considered an Infidel. An Infidel deserves to die. Most religions in the world do not practice this barbarian type of reasoning. I’ve been a protestant all my adult life and the thought of taking the life of a Catholic, a Satan Worshipper, or a Muslim would never enter my mind……..UNLESS, they were trying to take me out.
In the 100 yrs of war, Rome finally defeated and destroyed Cathage. Rome plowed the city over with salt. Carthage was never heard from again.
Well, truly, and most righteously said.* From personal experience I would add: Hamas seems to have been trained by the VC (Viet Cong). Murdering and torturing innocents is their thing.
End game
We’ve seen this picture too many times before
same old game we know the score
pathological hatred fed by fear and propaganda
in service of a remorseless barbaric agenda
Deranged justification for a so-called holy war
depravity rage brutality and gore
cruelty and sickness for all to see
hellbent on killing all Jews from the river to the sea
What kind of analysis would come from an honest therapist
about people who bestow martyrdom on murderers and rapists
who adopt a charter that says ethnic cleansing is justified
and can’t see the difference between defense and genocide
And what of the enablers who deny or are ignorant of history
promoting excuses, lies and faux moral equivalency
while others stand back and pretend they don’t see
or say who cares, it doesn’t affect me
But understand this, as the conflict continues to rage
more people join in and others try to turn the page
as the perpetrators try to exterminate every Jew
sooner or later they will come for you
For there’s no compromising with evil no middle ground
Satan is forever prowling around
always looking for more victims be it people or nations
his ultimate aim, like the jihadis’, is world domination
Poetry is a good way to answer the anti-Semitic madness.
What kind of analysis do you come up with looking at types who sublimely ‘welcome’ such creeps into their own countries–develop affirmative action plans to accommodate them– and allow their governments to capitulate to the brutish dogma.
A correction is imminent – something so catastrophic and biblical in proportion to anything ever witnessed by humankind across the millennia. We humans are the wretched refuse – the invasive species of this tiny planet and we’ll all be dealt with according to God’s will in due time. VDH’s logic and masterful arguments are impeccable. Sad that the primal, savage and ignorant human animal still does not comprehend the stark and foreboding warning that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Hamas has stated they want to murder every last Jew. They make a sneak attack into Israel and murder citizens including young children then brag about their terrorism. Why should anyone let alone Israel grant them any sympathy whatsoever?
I have been trying to order my own thoughts to myself, in writing, since Oct7. Your pieces here and on X express my thoughts far better than I am capable of doing.
With your help, I have worked my mind around the Geo-Political aspects. The rabid beast actions we have seen before via ISIS and others. At our respective ages, the absurd double standards that the two sides are held to, are simply the expected norm.
What I still have trouble with is the sheer scope and depth of the anti-semitism on display, both within the USA and across the rest of the globe. Along with it, the backlash has been reasonably strong as the above piece points out – but has lacked the complete revulsion from the vast majority that I would have expected. Certainly far, far less than the Developing World part ofAsia that I live in, would have shown, had it touched base here. Does not say anything good about our societal health in the West.
It is clear that the left is living in a dream world where lies and mistruth lead the way. A total lack of honesty and understanding of reality drives them into a radical ideology of total foolishness and angst. It is impossible to have any respect for a democrat these days. They have become nothing more than power-hungry fools.
The failure of the U.S. border will be their legacy and lead to the ultimate demise of America and sadly, they don’t care. Truly a fool’s errand. Let’s hope that at least thebidens will be held criminally liable.
This modern anti-semitism is a result more from the insular nature of Jewish communities than from any religious animosity. When groups set themselves apart, they invite hate. When they are viewed as using the group to take advantage of other, independent non- groupies, it invites hate. Perceived financial unfairness, basic jealousy, triggers hate. Shakespeare wrote about this in the 1600s with his pound of flesh. Generalization, as usual, is dangerous.
“Hamas and its supporters are openly and eagerly calling for the genocidal end of Israel by wiping it out from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”
I don’t think you know what genocide means. You can’t commit genocide on a place, only a people, and there are more jews outside of “Israel” than in it. The Palestinians are simply trying to reconquer territory that they occupied for centuries. “Israel” on the other hand is trying to perpetrate a genocide on the Palestinian people.
Do a comprehensive check into the history of the land. The current day people of Palestine are not native to the land.
However, lets go on the basis of your statement as being accurate history. The “centuries” you mention (as if that gives one a “right” to the land) pale in comparison to the millennia that the Jews have been on the land, and that is an accurte, provable, historical fact.
The last point and very main point, and one can agree or not, it won’t change the future in the least:
The LAND in question belongs to God, as ALL His creation does. God gave the land to the Jews – for whatever reason, no one trumps God’s decisions and His power to enforce those decisions. Over history, He has dispersed the Jews into the world, but always given His Word they would be returned, and when they were ultimately returned (1948), He said they would NOT be removed again. Nothing anyone can say or do – Muslims included – will change His edict: the Land belongs to the Jews.
…except…the Palestinians did not occupy Israel for centuries.
You gotta get your history right or your posts become vacuous and ill-informed and POOF! you look like a dummy. Don’t do that to yourself; it’s degrading.
If Israel is trying to perpetrate genocide on the Palestinians, it is failing miserably as their numbers have quadrupled in 75 years…you’d think they’d do a better job of it.
It does not matter what the Islamist world does or does not do. The central bankers’ jihad cult want complete enslavement of the free world to their satanic occult banking mafia. Their subversive Neo-colonialist Mi6, CIA, Mossad will continue destabilization just for the sake of evil ideology. They will use any means of mass genocide for profits. It is the ‘”protocols”‘ machinations at work and it can be can ended only one way. The world has been duped by evil again.
if you have the yottatons, USE the yottatons. Bigger bombs, shorter wars, less sniveling. The israeili-palestinian war has gone on now for 50-60 years. Bomb the place to hell and gone and don’t cry or apologize about it. It’s a war, win the war already.
Just one thing. Bravo
The Jews are God’s Holy & Chosen people. Their religion was the basis for Christianity. God said”I will bless you, who bless them.” What more needs to be said? As to the Palestinians, ever wonder why their Moslem brothers will not take them? They are the outcasts of Islam, that perverted “religion” that has violence, slavery, and subjugation as root principles. I have no sympathy for Hamas, Hezbollah, Isis, or the Moslem brotherhood. I hope they exterminate them all. The Israelites will make the world safer for all mankind.
OK, I go it, Ownership of Israel is the 11th commandment, the UN just returned it to the Jews in 1948. What is more dangerous about this war are two items. The United State is acting with their news briefs that they are fighting this war, and not Israel; and two is the reaction of the US younger citizens in college support HAMAS. Now I can begin to understand how Hitler hoodwinked the German population, start with the young. We have become what we hated in 1941