Meltdown

 

It may be funny but it is also disturbing in terms of what it has revealed about the discourse right now.

Clearly the Pro-Hamas cohorts miscalculated — almost from the moment the hostages had been squirreled away into Gaza — that their global mob response might represent a threat as a much as an opportunity.

They had seemingly become complacent in being about to shout down all opposition. The change of scale did not seem to present any new strategic considerations to mull over in advance.

For years they had had bullied, insulted, de-platformed, damaged and in many cases successfully silenced the selected targets of their venom, but had failed to anticipate that once their attitudes and conduct came under greater scrutiny in the wider culture, they would start to receive some measured push-back from moderate quarters that they had previously not had to consistently engage with.

The flipside of being able to say whatever you like is not having to state some things you really ought to be stating: like a commitment to lasting peace and mutual respect and a recognition of the right of Israel to exist.

Prior to October 7, their toxic playbook had been confined to more niche and pompous environments like academia. Apparent compliance from other progressive movements one would otherwise imagine would be appalled by everything Hamas stands for, probably fed the underlying complacency.

And for extremists, it's the moderates need to be silenced even more than the fanatics way over on the other pole, because nuance is the arch-nemeis of all dogma.

The extremist can never debate with the moderate on the latter's terms. So he or she makes out that the moderate is also an extremist, and calls him or her names from the glossary.

The crazed Hamasses have been left to impugn the moral being of all their interrogators, either via nonsensical yet barbed jargon (racist, coloniser, Nazi, apartheid, genocide) or by resorting to a numbers game: How many dead babies does Israel really need in payment for the blood debt?

The same people who will call you a racist will tell you that Israel, uniquely, has set itself a strategic military objective of killing as many babies as possible, a conscious upgrade on the blood libel for our mechanistic age.

I've found myself repeatedly having to explain that ethical considerations, for me at least (but also in law) are a matter where qualitative factors always take precedence over quantitative, even if we acknowledge the role played by the latter.

But how can one really ever have a fruitful discussion with people who are adamant that they are on the side of the angels even as they align themselves with a sinister, fascistic death cult which represents everything that liberal democracies ought to be taking significant counter-measures against?