The pro-Gaza crowd is turning dangerously treasonous
One of the most worrisome aspects of the war between Israel and Hamas is the ease with which so many Americans have been willing to betray their own nation for the sake of Palestine.
Take current US government efforts to ban TikTok. No sooner had the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to force the social media platform to decouple from its controversial parent company, ByteDance, than pro-Palestinian advocates were laying the blame on pro-Israeli organisations.
Never mind that Congress specifically targeted TikTok because it’s controlled by what they describe as a “foreign adversary”, a contentious charge yet to be proven. Who cares that study after study (including those commissioned by Amnesty International) has suggested that TikTok is damaging and divisive for young users. Forget that TikTok sucks up vast quantities of sensitive user data.
Oh, and don’t even mention that TikTok is so odious that China forbids their own young people from using it. According to pro-Palestinian activists like Ahmed Eldin and his American comrades, TikTok’s future is in doubt because the US government is under the control of pro-Israel and pre-Jewish groups like AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Back in November, it seems, ADL Chief Executive Jonathan Greeblatt was recorded saying that “we have a major Tik-Tik problem” during a conversation about the positive reaction by many teenagers and young adults to the Hamas attack on Israel. As Greenblatt noted, American support for Israel was no longer an issue of “left and right,” but rather “young and old” – with the former far more anti-Israel than the latter. TikTok, he noted briefly, is part of the problem: but so too are Hamas, Iran and “useful idiots in the west.”
Despite barely featuring in his chat, as far as the pro-Gaza crowd was concerned, the Greenblatt snippet was a smoking gun – Israel and Jews have been conspiring to cancel TikTok. This notion is as grossly offensive as it is absurd.
A similar sense of treasonous illogic coursed through a mid-November charade that unfolded – where else – on TikTok. Barely a month into the Israel-Hamas war, a young TikTok influencer named Lynette Adkins stumbled upon Osama Bin-Laden’s infamous 2002 “Letter to America”, which laid out the former Al Qaeda leader’s vision for global jihad barely a year after he led the September 11 attacks that killed thousands.
Filled with fundamentalist-sounding declarations such as “we are calling you to… Islam” and “Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme,” Bin Laden goes on to accuse Jews of controlling the world – along with the US of trading in “sex in all its forms.” Everything from gambling to alcohol and even AIDS are then touted as signs of American decay and the need to embrace Islam. It’s heavy stuff completely out of touch with the liberal, Western values America’s youth hold dear, right?
Not according to the nearly 35 million views of #lettertoamerica-related content posted on TikTok over the following few days, before the platform had the hashtag removed for violating its rules against supporting terrorism. Despite Bin Laden’s calls for America to embrace radicalism – and reject youthful joys like premarital sex – influencers like Adkins described “Letter to America” in breathless, life-changing terms.
“I feel like I’m going through, like, an existential crisis right now,” Adkins said after first reading the 20 year-old treatise. ”I just need someone else to be feeling this.” Apparently folks were: Another user noted seditiously, “If we’re going to call Osama bin Laden a terrorist, so is the American government” in a post that garnered over 100,000 views.
And then there’s Michigan, where Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib led the recent campaign to convince Muslim- and Arab-American voters to cast their ballots as “uncommitted” – rather than for Pres. Biden – during the state’s Democratic primary late last month. Their goal: to send a message of opposition to Biden for his pro-Israel policies and foreshadow potential voter disdain come November when he faces reelection against Donald Trump.
Where to begin here? With the specter of Arab-Americans voting for Trump, the man who enacted his notorious “Muslim ban” on mostly Arab travelers within days of his 2017 inauguration? Or with the fact that Tlaib – a sitting elected American official – seems to be encouraging voters to prioritise the needs of foreign nationals above those of the US?
Imagine a Hispanic politician asking their constituents to vote in the best interests of people back in Mexico or Colombia – or an Asian-American legislator doing the same but for China or Korea. Jewish organisations like AIPAC have long encouraged American Jews to vote with Israel’s best-interests in mind, despite the questions of “loyalty” they inevitably arouse.
But asking them to place Israel before America itself is about as likely as Israel being responsible for, well, TikTok being banned by the US government. Ultimately, any Jewish leader who expressly suggested American Jews prioritise Israel over the US would be skewered by folks like Tlaib, who has now done exactly the same thing in Michigan, but for Palestine.
Long before October 7, there was a relentlessness inherent in some American leftist support for Palestine. But now that support is superseding America itself, placing bipartisan and wholly logical efforts such as regulating the social scourge known as TikTok, or voting for candidates who actually support your party and best interests, behind the need to show unconditional support for Hamas.
Aaron Bushnell, an active American military member, immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC last month. Might we soon see the ultimate symbol of treason, US soldiers violently protesting before US government institutions, as well? With Israel winning the battle in Gaza, pro-Palestine activists are reaching new levels of desperation to win the war over public opinion. Nothing is now off limits, it seems – not even the best interests of their own nation.
Source » yahoo.com
