The term “to be with it” usually means to be well-informed and knowledgeable about the latest trends, fashions, or ideas, especially in culture. Unfortunately, it often relates to a presumed knowledge in which one simply adopts phrases, actions, items of clothing, a color, or a slogan without any real comprehension. One simply goes along with what’s popular, hoping to be either popular or accepted.
That, it seems, is the situation we are in at present regarding the century-old clash of Zionism and Israel vs expressions of Arab nationalism in the context of a “Palestine.” Our opponents have chosen to “be with it,” the “it” being anti-Zionist.
'Being with it'
“Palestine,” as a being with it thing, has become the darling of those seeking a counterculture phenomenon with which to identify. This makes them a worthy opposition, in their mind, to the mainstream political and, more importantly, social echelons.
As such, the truth of the claims made in the name of Palestine by the marching protesters, those who badger and berate Jews in cafes and campuses, who throw Jews out of shops, and who verbally threaten them with profanity-laced assaults, is less important, if at all, than the status they feel in acting in such a manner.
They are “with it.” They’ll wear the keffiyeh. They’ll dance a dabke step. They’ll eat a cuisine they’ve been told is a Palestinian fare. They will not investigate and determine for themselves the truth of what they’re told.
A tipping point of sorts has been reached for them. Convinced by a willingness to be persuaded by pseudo-intellectualism and ecstasized by the overwhelming influence of an ideology rather than a simple argument over facts, the pro-Palestinian camp wills itself into a cloud-cuckoo-land.
They are caught up in a feeling, an emotion. They are in “their moment,” and history and the chronicles of what actually happened and didn’t happen mean nothing to them. Terms are redefined. Geography and topography become irrelevant. Previous diplomatic developments and why we are in today’s reality are outside their frame of reference. Zionism is an outlier and cannot be considered as part of the process.
A worrying future
Lucy Tabrizi, who publishes “Notes From The Ruins” on Substack, has made this relevant observation:
“Everyone ‘stands with’ something these days… The bar for being an ‘activist’ has never been lower... we’re not really thinking for ourselves anymore. Our opinions aren’t maps of reality but loyalty badges. Looking like you’re on the ‘right’ side has become more important than actually being on it.”
Ignorance, a shallow grasp of background, disinterest in details, with an overlay of neo-Marxism, progressivism, and not a little dislike of Jews in general, is a potent mix.
It was in 1987 that Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. His insightful highlighting of the popular moral relativism, the undermining of critical thinking, and additional barriers to the notions of truth and genuine knowledge have been revealed fully these past few years in relation to the perception of Zionism and Israel by college students.
Unfortunately for Israel, many of these students from these past two or so decades have gone into government service, especially in the diplomatic corps, or have become administrative assistants to members of Congress or leaders in NGOs and other institutions of public education and welfare. Others have become college professors and even elected politicians on the state and federal levels. And too many of them possess closed minds, minds locked into a narrative that is wrong.
Moreover, it isn’t just that their thinking processes have been damaged and that their knowledge is inadequate and wrong. Their ability to apply objective moral values is damaged. Unable and now unwilling to admit that the “colonialism” charge made against Zionism is wrong, Israel is automatically dismissed, and its defenses against claims of guilt of “genocide” and “starvation” are disbelieved.
Baseless accusations and blind hatred
Those accusations, they assert, must be correct because Zionism is to be eliminated as it is, supposedly, what it isn’t. It’s the “locked-in narrative” formula. In being “with it,” one need not be smart or a possessor of the essential facts. It is more psychological and social. Everyone seems to be marching, chanting, and Jew-bashing. In Southend, UK, a synagogue is termed “a horrific Zionist area.”
Clashing with the police is heroic. If your parents are well-off, they can afford lawyers’ fees, if a Soros-backed group isn’t funding them. You can become a campus hotshot without having to play rough sports. If you have the correct lecturers (some of whom may be in the paddy wagon with you), your marks will not suffer at all. The campaign is the game.
You need not know exactly which river and sea Palestine is situated between. You can skip the part about Palestine never existing as a geopolitical entity, ever. If confronted, for example, with a query about why pro-Palestinian Arabs have been rejecting every political, diplomatic, and territorial offer of statehood since 1920, you can just, well, refuse to answer.
Moreover, if you are antisemitic, you can send messages like this one to Bethany Mandel, as published in the New York Post on August 19, who had sent her kids to a Jewish summer camp: “[expletives]… your kid who goes to Nazi summer camp! Free Palestine… You are literally indoctrinating your children with the idea that raping and murdering people for their land is not only okay but promised to you by God. Zionism is a disease that you are spreading.”
In addition, Mandel’s observation is quite relevant to my point here: “Her hatred isn’t rare; it’s disturbingly ordinary. And that’s what makes it so dangerous. This strain of progressive antisemitism thrives side by side with self-aggrandizing claims of moral superiority.”
The Free Palestine campaign has an equal opportunity advantage. You can be woke, progressive, liberal, Stalinist, Islamist, and/or antisemitic and still get a round of adulation for your hate and feel good. And all can enjoy each other’s company, all while globalizing the intifada. It’s a lifestyle, if potentially life-ending for Jews.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.