Curated Outrage

Hamas, a terrorist organization committed to the end of Israel as a nation, started shooting rockets into Israel a few weeks ago. Israel responded. After a few thousand rockets and a death toll that, depending on who’s reporting, numbers from dozens to hundreds, a tenuous ceasefire that began a few days ago seems to be holding.

Predictably, and I do mean very predictably, Americans’ opinions on the matter align with their broader political beliefs.

On the Right, people overwhelmingly “stand with Israel.”

On the Left, people broadly decry the Israeli murderers, oppressors, etc., and speak of the terrible Apartheid state that the Palestinians endure. That the facts refute the latter is, of course, irrelevant.

Even if that assertion held true, though, the outrage is remarkably selective.

Gaza’s population is about 2 million. Meanwhile, there are half a million Palestinians living in Lebanon. They are debarred from owning property, from being doctors or lawyers or holding other good jobs, and debarred from public schools. Their social and economic prospects are nil, made so by an Arabic government. Want to talk apartheid? There it is, as blatant as can be.

Why are none of our elite cultural scolds saying a thing about this?

Egypt, with “officially” 50K-100K Palestinians within her borders, put up a wall to keep Gazans out, and actually shot at them a decade ago. Where are the squawks?

Why are those who want the Palestinians treated better not calling out the rest of the Arab world for not simply opening their borders and integrating their cultural/societal/religious brethren into their societies?

Yes, that’s rhetorical. Palestinians are useful pawns for many Middle Eastern chess-masters. Their plight, real and manufactured, is extremely useful to the nations of that region. It stokes hatred for Jews and for Israel that detracts from failures of domestic policy and the relative weakness of their economies. It keeps Israel on the defensive and detracts from her citizens’ well-being. And, most importantly, it preserves the radicals’ long-term goal of removing Israel from the map.

To that last point, even those that don’t share that desire are served by it. The radical element will always be around, and in aiming it at “other,” they don’t have to worry about it as much domestically.

Many on the Left will go to great pains, if challenged, to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, as if that nuance matters in any practical sense. They will also trumpet their championing of the oppressed.

Therein lies the great hypocrisy, for they only decry the plight of the Palestinians when and where Israel is involved.

For many, of course, this is the result of their simply being told “go!” by the curators of outrage at the top of social and mainstream media. The lack of critical thinking and skepticism is, in turn, a product of the decay of education and its evolution from teaching to inculcating.

That’s still not an excuse, however. To re-quote Harlan Ellison,

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

If you were unaware of the Lebanon apartheid, I can accept that, provided that, now that you know, you change your tune. Don’t cry selective outrage at me while turning a blind eye to far worse done to the same people, and don’t rely on “your” team to tell you the what and when of your outrage.