My latest: it’s not gonna work, Jew haters

What’s that old military saying?  You know you’re over target when you’re taking flak?

That’s what the B-17 pilots used to say when flying over Europe on missions to bomb the Jew-haters in Hitler’s armies during World War Two.  The most intense flak happens when flying directly over target.

That saying – and the circumstances that gave rise to it – apply in the post-October 7 era, too.  Here at Postmedia, arguably the most pro-Israel newspaper chain on the continent, we tend to know when we are getting close to target: when the Israel-hating, pro-Hamas propaganda effort kicks into gear.  That’s when the flak gets heavy.

In recent days, this writer (and my editors) have taken flak, big time.  We’ve received hundreds and hundreds of letters, attacking us and Israel – using, over and over (and tellingly) the exact same subject line.  Using the same language and attack lines.

That is what is done in “astroturf” propaganda campaigns – namely, hiding the sponsor of the propaganda, to make it look like a spontaneous and organic grassroots response to something.

What enraged the Israel-haters? A column that stated what every sane person knows to be true: there is a coordinated, global and well-funded campaign to demonize Jews and the Jewish state.

It is seen in anti-Israel protestors getting paid to show up.  It is seen in experienced, professional organizers running protests and rallies to attack Jews, Jewish businesses and Jewish neighbourhoods.

It is seen online, where Gen Z and millennials – in particular – have been bombarded with messaging denying the atrocities of October 7, denying the right of Israel to exist, and denying that Hamas raped, killed, mutilated and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis.  It is seen in the deployment of professional-looking graphics and agit-prop around the globe.  Always to turn Israel, the victim, into the wrongdoer.

This newspaper, and other media, have documented all of this, many times.  And when we do, the Israel-haters lose their minds. They are sent into a spit-flecked rage. Because they know, deep in the cavernous pits where their hearts are supposed to be, that they cannot let the Jewish state ever be the object of empathy.

They cannot let people remember that Hamas broke the ceasefire. That Hamas started the war.  That Hamas used, and uses, innocent Gazans as human shields.  That Hamas brutalized and murdered hundreds of innocent civilians – men, women, children and babies.

The haters know that, if that happens, they will lose the propaganda war.  In that way, they’re just like the Holocaust deniers that preceded them: they need to deny, deny, deny.  To rehabilitate the reputation of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism, the Holocaust deniers needed to erase the historical fact of the murder of six million Jews.

So, too, the October 7 deniers.  They need to deny the killings and the rapes and the kidnappings and the barbarism.  Because nobody will want to listen to their anti-Semitic chants if they recall that, on that day, Israel was the true victim.  Not the wrongdoer.

The astroturfing and hundreds of “spontaneous” letters aren’t going to work.  In their essence, they are a lie.  They are smoke and mirrors.  They are disinformation.

The letter-writers should know this, too: it’s not working.  In fact, it’s having precisely the opposite effect.  The more you complain – the more you attack – the more we know we are on the right track.

Because you’re telling us we are over target.