Protesters burn an Israeli flag during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Bogota, Colombia, on Oct. 17
-OpEd-
BOGOTÁ — Marx and Lenin would be turning over in their graves. If only they could see how sectors of the political Left, which is supposed to despise religion ("opiate of the masses"), are now in bed with radical Islam. Those laudable traits the Left proudly claims as its own — humanism, inclusivity and diversity — have been summarily ditched to make way for what is an apparently more fervent passion: hatred of the Jews.
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The Middle East has, and not for the first time, unmasked the nature of some in the Left elsewhere in the world, and its newer incarnation, what some call the progressive or "woke" movement. Beyond what they claim to defend, there is something that fires them up every time, anti-Semitism.
It emerged in its crassest form this time in the celebration of the worst mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, an unwitting embrace of a tyrannical, theocratic ideology that also oppresses women, kills homosexuals and crushes individual liberties.
What if the victims were another minority?
Some of these self-declared defenders of human rights have sought to hide their shameful anti-Semitism beneath that veneer of political correctness called anti-Zionism. But that is like applying gaudy make-up to soften defects in your features, merely to highlight them instead.
The pro-Palestinian gatherings we've seen look an awful lot like carnivals of hate, with their ire turned entirely on Israel and the Jews. There were even celebrations of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 at some top U.S. universities, as if their football team had scored a big win. One professor at Cornell University addressing a crowd, described the Hamas attack as "exciting" and "energizing", prompting vigorous applause. If such eminent institutions had existed in Nazi Germany, just imagine, they might have trained the party élite and future gauleiters!
Let's hope they can wake up.
Now, what would the woke brigade have said if Hamas had killed, not Jews, but some other vulnerable "minority" like blacks or indigenous, women and LGBTQ? Of course, they would have come out marching against the Islamists, denouncing them as retrograde, homophobic, misogynistic savages. But if their victims are Jews, maybe deep down they're good folk ...
Screenshot of a video clip published on Oct. 16 showing a professor at Cornell University lauding the Hamas attack as "exciting" and "energizing"
Where are they now?
Also, I do not recall them saying a thing when Syria's strongman, Bashar al-Assad, murdered Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp or the Lebanese army stormed the Nahr al-Bared camp (in 2007).
Perhaps one should remind people what happened on Oct. 7, seeing as quite a few of them, especially around here, are keen to forget, or even deny it. Hundreds of Hamas terrorists entered Israel from Gaza, reached the settlements or kibbutzim near the border and proceeded to murder entire families with extreme cruelty.
At the same time, hundreds of young people were gunned down at a music festival, and more than 200 have been taken hostage: children, women and older people, and who knows where they are now. That is what the righteous people of the far Left are applauding.
Let's hope they can wake up and understand that you cannot defend social progress while siding with mindless henchmen, and expect us not to see that you are simply wallowing in hate.
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