activism Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

Palestinians | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 784

What would you do to stop what you consider ultimate evil? If you are truly sincere, the likely answer is that you would do whatever it takes. “Genocide,” an incandescent, inciting word much used these days, would seem to be part of what many would regard as evil.[1] But these days that incitement, in terms of public rhetoric, is used almost exclusively in regards to the State of Israel, Jews and Israel’s main supporter, the United States of America.[2]

Several writers – I was one of them – have compared the student unrest seen over the past two years against Israel and the Gaza War with Sixties anti-Vietnam War activism in the United States and Western Europe.[3] That large, usually peaceful, movement did spin off several very small, extremely violent, leftist revolutionary movements that endured for years even after the war that had initially triggered student protests had ended. These groups, of which the Weather Underground is the perfect example, had made two transitions: They moved from a specific criticism (the Vietnam War is bad) to a more general, systemic one (the system or the regime is bad and is irredeemable) and they embraced revolutionary violence.

In early 2025 we have seen several examples of what could be seen as revolutionary violence in the United States inspired by opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza:

On April 13, 2025 a 38-year-old man firebombed the official residence of the governor of Pennsylvania while Governor Shapiro and his family slept inside. The arsonist, Cody Balmer, said that he wanted to kill Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat, because of what Shapiro “wants to do to the Palestinian people,” according to the Pennsylvania State Police.[4]

On May 21, 2025, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez shot to death two local employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., outside of a public event hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Jewish National Museum.[5] Rodriguez was an enthusiast of left-wing and anti-American causes but his immediate motivation was “Free Palestine,” as he himself chanted for the camera after his arrest.

On June 1, 2025, Egyptian illegal migrant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Islamist who arrived in the United States only in 2022, used Molotov cocktails and a homemade flamethrower against a Boulder, Colorado gathering of Jews supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza.[6] Soliman also called for “Free Palestine.”

On the surface, Balmer (who seems to have mental issues), Rodriguez, and Soliman are very different individuals. Two are American and one is a foreigner. Balmer seems to have been vaguely left-wing, while Rodriguez was a far-left true believer. Soliman is an enthusiast of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Three very disparate individuals, and yet all three were motivated to take direct, violent action against Jews by the cause of Palestine, specifically the situation in Gaza.

We have so far, a pretty good fit between some of the elements that prevailed with the situation in the late 1960s and today: a war generates a widespread, student-led protest movement; the protest movement combines or agglomerates other causes; the movement transcends the specifics of the war that generated the protests in the first place; targeted violence – not just the three mentioned but many other lesser examples – connected to the cause ensues.

Here the similarities fray and the comparisons end. We do not yet have, that we know of, actual political movements committed to revolutionary violence along the lines of the Weather Underground or the Black Guerrilla Family. We do have a broad swathe of organizations and individuals – Antifa and Leftist/Socialists – who practice a lower level of direct street action that approaches violence and includes things like simple assault, seizing and destroying property, and disturbing public order. This is not insignificant but is not – not yet – the clandestine, terrorist revolutionary action we saw in the Days of Rage.

Here is where our near future diverts radically from the situation in the heyday of the Weather Underground. Back then, the revolutionaries got older, some died and others were captured, others started families, America society moved on from Vietnam, the Seventies led to the Reagan years and the capitalist and consumerist excess of the 1980s and beyond.[7]

Today, we see a much different scenario unfolding. Instead of revolutionary ardor being curbed by rising prosperity, we see an age of looming economic disruption. Not only is the West, including the United States, saddled with enormous debt, but family formation and home buying, activities that tend to move people toward the political right, among the young at historic lows.[8]

Even worse, especially for the young is the rise of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace. Not only does AI threaten jobs in general, its immediate target will be entry-level white-collar jobs, the very positions that new university graduates would be looking for as they start their careers.[9] College-educated women may be hard hit by the end of office work.[10] This means that we may see in the West – very soon – that phenomenon many of us have seen in third world countries in pre-revolutionary situations: hordes of well-educated young people with nothing to do – no job, no house, no marriage prospects.[11] Just time to seethe and ponder.

Maybe they will become the harbingers of a “Free Palestine” themed violent revolution, melding leftism and Islamism into a potent revolutionary cocktail, the continuation of the so-called Red-Green Alliance we already see in several Western European countries.[12] But the reality is that we do not know what these masses will do – just that they are likely to exist and to be very dissatisfied.

Perhaps their cause will be instead an anti-AI Luddism or even, one can hope, we are on the verge of a mass religious revival or a turning toward the, often derided and battered, and yet eternal wellsprings of the West – Classical and Christian, as economist Philip Pilkington has suggested.[13]

Revolution is coming. It will be disruptive and even violent. But what it is for and what it will be against and what comes out of it is not at all clear.

AUTHOR

ALBERTO M. FERNANDEZ

Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.

SOURCES:

[1] Jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/from-blood-libel-to-genocide-libel/

[2] Mosaicmagazine.com/observation/politics-current-affairs/2024/12/the-onslaught-against-the-jews-is-an-onslaught-against-the-west, December 26, 2024.

[3] See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 551, Blinking Terror Lights – But What Kinds Of Terror?, December 8, 2023.

[4] Abcnews.go.com/US/alleged-arsonist-targeted-pennsylvania-gov-josh-shapiro-palestine/story?id=120860365, April 16, 2025.

[5] Justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/federal-charges-filed-after-deadly-shooting-israeli-diplomats-dc, May 22, 2025.

[6] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 12048, Boulder, CO Firebomber Mohamed Sabry Soliman Recorded Video Before Attack Declaring: Jihad Is More Beloved To Me Than My Mother, Wife, And Children; Allah Is Greater Than The Zionists And America, June 3, 2025.

[7] Time.com/4549409/the-weather-underground-bad-moon-rising, November 2, 2016.

[8] Ifstudies.org/blog/the-societal-cost-of-the-marriage-decline, March 5, 2024.

[9] Msn.com/en-us/news/technology/anthropic-ceo-says-ai-could-wipe-out-half-of-all-entry-level-white-collar-jobs/ar-AA1FEPBU?ocid=BingNewsSerp, May 28, 2025.

[10] Msn.com/en-gb/money/other/how-the-ai-takeover-might-affect-women-more-than-men/ar-AA1FiQne?ocid=BingNewsSerp, May 22, 2025.

[11] Carnegieendowment.org/sada/2024/04/algerias-graduate-studies-dilemma?lang=en, April 18, 2024.

[12] Start.umd.edu/publication/emerging-red-green-alliance-where-political-islam-meets-radical-left, 2013.

[13] Multi-polarity.com/episodes/episode/1ccca10a/special-edition-pilkington-launches-the-collapse-of-global-liberalism, June 5, 2025.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln

In 1973, my journey into the world of political activism began when I organized a group of high school friends to work as volunteers in support of partisan candidates and ballot issues. We were young, naïve and full of energy, and were confident our contributions would change the world. More importantly, we blindly believed that all the candidates and elected officials were worthy of our trust.

This was during the time that Watergate exploded and little did we know that the rose-colored glasses we so boldly displayed were about to dull. Instead of taking the time to fully research candidates, their positions and the influencers around them, we just blindly plunged ahead giving them the most precious resource any citizen can give – our time, our energy and when we came of age, our vote.

We even sent a letter of support to the then-entrenched President, and when he wrote us back, we continued down our path of blind support.

Eight months later, the President resigned in disgrace and we learned an extremely painful, yet important lesson; all is not as it seems and many who seek the people’s trust are not deserving, nor worthy. We also learned it is vital that We the People look beyond a candidate’s and politician’s political rhetoric and apply a magnifying lens against what the person does versus what they say.

Our nation is approaching another election in ten days and I am again reminded of how important those early lessons learned are to the FairTax® campaign.

Are the candidates seeking your vote truly worthy of your trust? Are they individuals of impeccable integrity? Where do they spend the majority of their time – with paid lobbyists and consultants or with the people they [will] represent?

Does the candidate wanting your vote support the FairTax legislation?

This is an important question that demands a yes or no answer – not a maybe, sorta or kinda. And if the answer is yes, does the individual support it only in word or on a piece of paper or have they actually done something to try and advance the legislation?

It’s easy to put your name on a piece of paper and say you support something. It is much more defining when one takes a leadership position to advance a piece of legislation. Washington is full of “go-alongs to get-alongs.” These people are simply fence sitters who take up space – talk a good game and do nothing.

The FairTax legislation demands bold and decisive leaders willing to buck status quo in order to remove the shackles of a tax system that is destroying jobs, the economy and the financial livelihood of the American people who contribute their hard-earned income.

You have ten days until Election Day. It’s not too late to really get to know the candidates on your ballot. If you candidate is an incumbent Member of Congress, they are working in their district offices. Go visit them. If you can’t visit, call. Ask tough questions.

Bring this comparison chart and ask if they support the FairTax. If they do, ask what they have done to advance it – make them give you specifics. Visit with their staff. Ask them tough questions too. Ask them if they support the IRS. They will say no and you must then explain to them that the only way to ensure that the IRS goes away is to pass the FairTax collected by the states. And be sure to let them know that you support candidates who support the FairTax Plan.

Our nation is in the midst of an economic and jobs crisis—things the FairTax will create. We desperately need principled leaders willing to make tough decisions like eliminating the income tax and passing the FairTax. Your vote in support of candidates who support the FairTax is a major step forward to making the FairTax the law of the land.

As former Secretary Bill Simon said, “Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.” Whatever you do, please vote. And make sure that any candidate lucky enough to get your vote is worthy of your trust. Finally, as President John Quincy Adams said, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”

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