All the Way
We watched a bit of the anti-Israel protest on C-SPAN over the weekend.
It's difficult to believe anyone could ever be persuaded by a chant like "we don't care what you say, Intifada all the way."
The first line is, no doubt, perfectly accurate. The second is rather imprecise. What is meant by "all the way?" I suppose the answer is indicated by the speakers' suggestions that the Intifada be "globalized" and "brought to America."
I admit, its silliness and triteness made me giggle at first. Then I started to think about it. What they were really calling for is not only the destruction and ethnic cleansing of a tiny democratic state in the Middle East (bad enough) but also for "the struggle" to be extended to the rest of the world. And by "struggle" is meant indiscriminate slaughter of masses of ordinary people by maniacs who turn themselves into bombs and blow themselves up in public places in order to make an unintelligible "statement" for their cause and to blackmail the survivors into granting the demands of their leaders. And by "the cause" is meant a variety of fascism. And the demands include the elimination of an entire people, by death or "transfer" (depending on how "moderate" you are.) And by "the rest of the world," they mean, among others, us: our families, our friends, our neighbors. Theirs, too. Death to us!
This is a "peace movement?" Suicide Movement, more like. ("Homicide Movement?")
Once you realize that the demonstration you're watching on CSPAN is, in effect, a pep rally in honor of the spirit of 9/11, and a call for future 9/11s, it doesn't seem quite so amusing.
Yeah, I know it's a lot to read into a silly demo-chant. Those kids are just having fun, raising a little hell just like they're supposed to. They also said "George Bush is a ho." (Now that's funny.) Globalize the Intifada. Bring it to America. Go "all the way." They can't really mean it. Can they?
Lileks had a similar reaction to these sound bites:
I heard some clips today from a rally held by the Washington Monument in support of the PLO and Hamas. Part of the merry anti-Globo puppet parade. It’s just so charming to hear rudely amplified voices calling for the death of the Jews again. It’s just so . . . bracing to hear a speaker take the mike beneath the two-toned obelisk named for America’s Cincinnatus, and demand the destruction of of a small democratic state in a sea of technocrat tyrannies. And it gives you such a warm feeling to hear the crowd bay their approval. A speaker demanded that the borders of the Middle East be returned to 1947; the crowd cheered.Death to the Jews, death to Israel.
Stated and applauded.
In America. In Washington. On the Mall.
I had a sudden flash of Martin Luther King Jr. standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, beholding this rally, and thinking: I have a nightmare. And here it is...
Another insisted it was time to GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA - an interesting remark coming from the anti-Globalization crowd, but if this recent rally proved anything it’s that they despise America itself, not America’s behavior. Whatever point they originally had about globalization - some of which I used to share - has been consumed by their adoration of fascism and political violence. When a speaker promised to bring the intifada to America, and use “whatever means necessary” - enunciating each word so the reference to St. Malcolm the X was welded to the current definition of “means” - then the point is naked and obvious: you have a movement that wants young people to blow themselves up at the Disney store in Times Square. Not that any of the people at the rally would do it, of course. Not that they would necessarily approve of it. But they would certainly understand it.