— Feature, Musings —04.24.2024 10:37 AM
My latest: the enemy is inside the house
There’s a scene in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies that applies, and doesn’t, to the madness that now grips the civilized world.
In Golding’s famous book, a plane full of boys crashes on a deserted island during a nuclear war. The pilot dies; the boys survive. The boys soon realize that they need to fend for themselves – no one has come for them.
One of the boys addresses the others. Says he: “This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us, we’ll have fun.”
“We’ll have fun.” Therein lies the contradiction. The boys want adults to rescue them. But they also don’t. So they start to form their own society, one that is replete with extreme violence and factionalism.
It’s just a book, yes, one that Golding later said readers can take from it what they will. But, observing the epidemic of anti-Semitism and anger that is now seemingly everywhere, things look quite a bit like Golding’s book. That is, young people are off on an island on their own, these days, and they are descending rapidly into violence and hatred.
But here’s the key difference: they don’t want to be rescued.
The statistics – in Canada, the United States and Europe – all show the same depressing thing: vast swaths of younger generations hate the Jewish state, and they increasingly hate anyone who does not feel as they do. Poll after poll show the same thing: shockingly-large segments of Generation Z (from 18 to 24) and Millennials (from 25 to late 30s or so) have moved to their own island, one where Jew hatred and hatred of the trappings of modern society are the rule.
Some of the polling, from across the West:
• A Harvard poll, conducted right after the carnage of Oct. 7, found that more than half of American Gen Z support Hamas. That Hamas was “justified.” A fifth of them regard the Holocaust as “a myth.”
• A March Leger poll found that 22 per cent of Canadian Gen Z have “a positive view of Hamas,” and they are eight times more likely to doubt or deny the Holocaust than older Canadians.
• A Fall Ekos poll found that half of Gen Z regard Israel as an apartheid state. Angus Reid found that three times as many young women in Canada side with the Palestinian/Hamas side over Israel’s.
• A December Harvard/Harris poll found that more than half of American Gen Z say “Israel should be ended and given to Hamas.”
That is not all. Other polling, unpublished to date, shows nearly 40 per cent of Canadian Gen Z “support the destruction of Israel.” More than 40 per cent of them say the “extreme violence” of Hamas on October 7 was “justified.”
You don’t need to be a pollster to know these things. Turn on on your TV, or glance at your computer screen, and you will see it: the protests and rallies – some violent, many anti-Semitic – are filled with young people. White young people, mostly.
But why?
All of us were as young once. When you are young, it is normal to be oppositional – to oppose your parents, your teachers, your governments. Opposing war is something every generation does – from Vietnam onwards. And, now, it’s the Israel-Hamas war – but with a difference.
RMG Research in the U.S. has attempted to answer the “why” question. Young people, the pollster found, regard Israelis and Jews as wealthy and powerful, and that is why their war on Hamas is unjust – they are the oppressors, the powerful, wreaking vengeance on the weak. Their hatred for Israel and Jews dovetails with the hatred we now see them expressing about Western society, says on of the poll’s sponsors: “Gen Z is so embarrassed about being American that a large swath of them have become terrorist sympathizers.”
It is not an exaggeration.
The anti-Semitic trope that Jews are wealthy and all-powerful is part of it. But so too is the racial dimension. Even though more than 60 per cent of Israel’s population are non-white, many North American and European Gen Z and Millennials falsely depict it as a racist state (in fact, Israeli Apartheid Week got its start on Canadian campuses). So, a recent investigation by PBS saw youthful anti-Israel protestors repeatedly citing race as a motivator, too. Previously, they participated in Black Lives Matter and Native American protests. Now they are protesting for Gaza and against the Jewish state: it’s all connected, to them.
Can it all be fixed? Can we get back the Gen Z and Millennials who seem to be drifting away into hate?
Perhaps. Maybe. But, for now, they are on their own little island, “having fun.”
I’m glad someone else has noticed how the supporters of the two sides are depicted in media coverage (white versus non-white) promoting the notion that Israel is the white oppressor and the other side are the non-white oppressed.
The current polling and research is good and maybe goes to explain the reasoning behind the current wave of anti-Semitism, but what about before the current wave? Jew-hating has been a thing for a very long time, you could almost say it’s one of the very few things that all societies have had at one time or another. How much does the fact that anti-semitism has existed for millennia make it easier for those to justify it now? To me, there is a non-zero chance that anti-semitism of the past is greasing the wheels for anti-semitism now.
Warren,
What a bunch of losers. They should be forced to watch the footage that you endured at the Israeli consulate. How can ANYONE oppose Israel after viewing that horrific footage? The mind simply B-O-G-G-L-E-S…
Having once been a young person many years ago, I have this to share:
Young people intuitively want to fight for justice, as they should and that’s great. Young people however are much less inclined towards the dreary work of searching for hard facts from reliable sources. The internet has fueled an unnatural divergence between these two important things. The Palestine marches, silly DEI seminars, fake trucker rallies and the like, are all part of the same problem. I call it fastfood justice fighting. Instant fill you up calories but no nutrition.
Or, to put it more succinctly, the internet has made everyone fucking nuts.
Additionally, it’s the natural progression of the “with us or against us” philosophy that permeates all of our politics. It’s not just that people pick a side and stick with it unconditionally, they also demand everyone else do too, nuance and context be damned. Then they justify anything and everything their chosen side does, demonize everything the other side does, and refuse to accept the reality that being a member of any group that exists on this planet does not preclude the possibility that they’re simply being an asshole.
I often disagree with your views but in this case you hit the nail on the head.
Hah! I hope you do often disagree with my views. 75% of what I say in this forum is just cranky belligerent nonsense that I’d never have the courage to say in public 🙂
Jesus how did so many educated Germans get on board with the Nazis and the persecution of the Jews that lead to the holocaus…….ahhh now I get it, but its the left not the right wing nut jobs that are loudly beating the Jew hating drums…….fascinating.
The election of Trump, Brexit, the left’s frustration on lack of progress regarding climate change, fighting racism, etc., etc. caused liberals and progressives to turn their activism up to 11. Everything the young protestors are chanting now was taught them by politicians of the left, the media, non-profits, high school teachers, university professors and on and on. Like Mao, who launched the Cultural Revolution to reestablish his centrality to the communist revolution, but lost control of the kids, today’s progressives launched an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, identarian, post-modern, red guard of their own…. and now they too have lost control. Progressives have sowed a whirlwind. Let’s hope it blows itself out before too many more are killed. We don’t want to be the new Rwanda!
The chickens have come home to roost. Postmodernism. Everything is fault of the West. The Patriarchy. White Privilege. The abject cowardice of our leaders. The simpering obsequiousness of the politicians as they pander for votes. Let’s not forget that Gen Z and the Millennials have been royally screwed on the job and housing front; many with huge student debt. So they are pissed off, and sadly have been taken in by a sinister hoax.
Will this guy find a job as a Liberal diversity consultant?
https://twitter.com/kinsellawarren/status/1783991685631873059?
He’s already been “green lit”.