Tag Archive for: Gaza war

Most Of The Building Blocks For Revolutionary Action In The West Are Now In Place, But Which Revolution?

/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

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.

RELATED VIDEO: U.S. college protests: The parallels between Gaza and Vietnam

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.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DOJ anti-Semitism task force to investigate Harvard, Columbia, other universities for ‘unlawful discrimination’

/in , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

Finally, the truth about Islamic antisemitism is being addressed on what are ostensibly the most antisemitic campuses in the U.S. The task force “will investigate campuses that have become flashpoints since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.”

Those who have been most involved in pro-Hamas activism have been complicit in bullying, intimidation, threats of violence, incitement against Jews, and the open call to obliterate the Jewish nation from the River to the Sea.

“DOJ task force to visit NYU, Harvard to investigate antisemitism,” by Sudiksha Kochi, USA Today, March 2, 2025:

WASHINGTON – Columbia Harvard, NYU and seven other universities will get a visit from the Justice Department’s antisemitism task force, which will investigate campuses that have become flashpoints since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.

The universities were told by the Trump administration they “may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination,” according to a statement.

The group plans to meet with university leadership, students, law enforcement, and community members and consider “whether remedial action is warranted.”

The ten universities include: Columbia University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California…..

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

Jamaal Bowman’s New PAC Will Target Pro-Israel Incumbents

Hamas Attacked Israel on a Jewish Holiday, It Wants a Ramadan Ceasefire

South Africa’s chief rabbi slams world’s religious leaders for silence on Christian beheadings in DRC

RELATED VIDEO: In one week U.S. warfighters have killed five high value Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorist targets

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Breaking: Hamas Chief Likely Dead

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

The Mastermind of the 10/7 Sabbath Massacre Highly Likely Killed.

Chances are very high’: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar killed in Gaza

While Sinwar’s death has not received final confirmation from the IDF, security officials have told Israeli media that the changes are “very high.”

JERUSALEM POST STAFF | OCTOBER 17, 2024

Security officials have said that the chances that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a strike in Gaza are “increasingly higher,” Israeli media reported on Thursday.

The IDF and Shin Bet (ISA) put out a joint statement on the possible assassination earlier Thursday.

“Initial report – During IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, three terrorists were eliminated. The IDF and ISA are checking the possibility that one of the terrorists was Yahya Sinwar. At this stage, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed,” the IDF said.

“In the building where the terrorists were eliminated, there were no signs of the presence of hostages in the area. The forces that are operating in the area are continuing to operate with the required caution.”

Sky News Arabia published a report shortly after, quoting a security official as saying that his death his confirmed.

Sinwar orchestrated the October 7 Massacre, which led to the deaths of over 1,200 people, including Israelis and other nationalities alike, and the taking of over 250 hostages, of which 101 remain in Gaza.

Of the 101 hostages, the IDF confirmed that 48 were killed in captivity.

Sinwar was widely believed to be hiding in Hamas tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip, never staying in one location for too long and avoiding communications technologies, relying on messengers.

Human shields

The Hamas terror chief was believed to be surrounded by the remaining hostages as a human shield, which has reportedly prevented the IDF from striking and killing him. Again, the IDF reiterated in their statement that no signs of hostages were present at the site of the strike.

Conflicting reports emerged of whether Sinwar had left the tunnels over the course of the Israel-Hamas War, and the IDF obtained footage of the Hamas chief walking through the tunnels in February of this year.

Several Hamas leaders have been eliminated by Israel, including Hamas political head Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran in July, and Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, who was killed in the Gaza Strip also in July.

This is a developing story. 

©2024. ACT For America! All rights reserved.

Please visit the Act for America substack.

Secretary of State Kerry views the Gaza Conflict through the prism of his Vietnam experience

/in , , , , /by

Secretary of State John Kerry was dispatched last week to begin a new round of shuttle diplomacy between Cairo, Ankara and Qatar endeavoring to find some leverage with Hamas to obtain a longer cease fire. His latest attempt as of this writing was rejected by Israel as the offer he put on the table simply reiterated Hamas’ previously rejected terms. Those terms proposed by Hamas were based on the November 2012 cease fire agreement.  An agreement the Administration used to encourage Israel to relent to shipment of cement, steel and equipment for reconstruction of Gaza. This reconstruction was funded by $405 million from Qatar, a Hamas supporter. Israel’s fears about diversion of those resources were confirmed in the discovery of the elaborate fortifications and tunnel network during the current Operation Defensive Edge. Kerry returned to Washington this weekend via Paris, where he met with foreign ministers from Turkey, Qatar, France, the U.K. and the EU foreign relations commissioner, without the likelihood that further mediation between the warring parties could yield an agreement to return to calm.

Perhaps the lack of success in mediating a cease fire agreement may be that  Kerry views the Gaza conflict with Hamas through the prism of his Vietnam War experience over 44 years ago. The WSJ Weekend Edition “Notable & Quotable” had  this insightful  exchange between Israeli PM Netanyahu and Secretary Kerry drawn from a July 20th New Republic article by Ben Birnbaum  and Amir Tibon:

The prime minister opened the meeting by playing Kerry a video on one of his favorite topics: Palestinian incitement. It showed Palestinian children in Gaza being taught to glorify martyrdom and seek Israel’s destruction. “This is the true obstacle to peace,” Netanyahu told Kerry.

“It’s a major issue,” Kerry replied. “And nothing justifies incitement. I hate it. I’ve read Abbas the riot act about it. You know I have. But it is worthwhile to try to understand what life looks like from the Palestinian point of view.”

“This has nothing to do with the occupation and the settlements,” Netanyahu said.

Kerry pressed on: “When I fought in Vietnam, I used to look at the faces of the local population and the looks they gave us. I’ll never forget it. It gave me clarity that we saw the situation in completely different ways.”

“This isn’t Vietnam!” Netanyahu shouted. “No one understands Israel but Israel.”

Kerry tried explaining himself again: “No one is saying it’s Vietnam. But I’ve been coming here for thirty years, and I’m telling you, what’s building up in the Palestinians has only gotten worse. I’ve seen it. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong; it just is. It can’t be solved if you can’t see it how they see it.”

To get some sense of what Kerry was talking about in this exchange with Netanyahu, I went back to his April 22, 1971 testimony on the so-called Winter Soldiers Study of Viet Nam anti-war veterans before the Senate Foreign Committee, chaired by the late Sen. J.W.  Fulbright of Arkansas.  Here is an excerpt from the opening stanza of his testimony:

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw firsthand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on ‘the Vietcong.

Fast forward to July 2014 and Kerry’s exchange with Israeli PM Netanyahu quoted in the New Republic  article. The contrast is that Netanyahu   knows his people are besieged with rockets and mortar indiscriminately raining down on four fifths of the Jewish nation from terrorist groups Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad controlling Gaza.  Further, that Hamas and its partner in the Palestinian unity government, PA President Mahmoud Abbas marinate young minds in hatred and violence seeking destruction of the Jewish dhimmi state that has shamed them.  If you substitute Hamas for Viet Cong or North Vietnam, you suddenly realize where Kerry’s head is at when it comes to mediating cease fire between two unmovable adversaries. Israel is the only reliable democratic ally in the region  combating  Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization designated by our State Department.

According to a report in The Times of Israel sources in Jerusalem accused Kerry of “completely capitulated to Hamas” in the proposed cease fire rejected by Israel.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the New English Review.

Florida: Pro-Hamas Protest in Pensacola

/in , , /by

Yesterday in downtown Pensacola a contingent of pro-Hamas supporters showed up with handmade and professional signs. A banner held by two burly kaffiyeh draped bearded young men was emblazoned with “Israel want peace or Land?” Small children, faces painted with Palestinian flags, held signs saying “Save Gaza.” They were  entreating on-lookers and drivers stopped at the traffic light at the junction of Palafox and Garden Streets to hail them with thumbs up signs and honks from cars waiting for the light to change. It was the last Friday of Ramadan, al Quds day. Violence erupted on Al Quds Day in the West Bank and East Jerusalem with thousands engaged in pitched battles with Israeli security forces, six Palestinians were killed.

Al Quds Day was established by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in protest to Israel’s occupation of its eternal capital, Jerusalem, supporting the Palestinian cause. Demonstrations on Al Quds day erupted around the Muslim Ummah from Pakistan to Tehran to Paris to London and Calgary. Throngs in these processions accused Israel of genocide in Gaza against defenseless Palestinian civilians. There were other pro-Hamas demonstrations here in the US in major cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. Jewish and non-Jewish supporters have also launched opposing Stand for Israel rallies in a number of these major cities.

Free Gaza Poster in Pensacola

Free Gaza Poster in Pensacola, FL. For a larger view click on the image.

Pensacola has a sizable Muslim community, given two mosques, and a Muslim Student Association chapter at the University of West Florida. Pensacola is the regional medical center for Northwest Florida and it is not uncommon to find Muslim doctors and medical specialists of Middle East and South Asian origins. On Fridays after Jummah prayers we have caught glimpses of men attired in Kufi caps and gabilas. At a major indoor mall it is not uncommon to come across Muslim women attired in burkas sitting  with children eating ice cream. The local community has allies in the anti-war community who showed a series of anti-Israel pro-Palestinian films at the central library during the Bush 43 presidency era in the last decade. We have a local restaurateur who specializes in tasty Middle Eastern fare. He had painted a mural map of the Middle East on the side of one of his three restaurants overlooking a heavily trafficked supermarket parking lot. There is no Israel on it. In February 2010, Former Muslims United sent out a mass mailing to 163 mosques and Muslim leaders in the US requesting that they abjure death fatawas against apostates. Apostates like Meriam Ibrahim just released along with her husband and children from sanctuary at the US Embassy in Khartoum and flown to saftey in Rome to meet the Pope and then on to freeom in the US. 47 of those were sent to community leaders and Mosques here in the Sunshine State. None of those community leaders and mosques responded, including the two Mosques here in Pensacola.

Mural Map of Middle East without Israel on Pensacola FL restaurant

Mural Map of Middle East without Israel on Pensacola, FL restaurant. For a larger view click on the image.

Today, more banned protests are occurring in central Paris where last weekend more Jewish synagogues and businesses were firebombed and attacked, accompanied with cries of “kill the Jews” and “Allahu Akbar.”

We should consider ourselves fortunate in Pensacola that yesterday’s Pro-Hamas rally didn’t engage in menacing threats to the local Jewish community. As we have written that was not the case with a small contingent of both Jews and Christians in Calgary last Friday. They were set upon by thugs from a pro Hamas rally, with five sent to hospital for treatment, while Calgary police stood by. Today there was a, humanitarian pause of 12 hours extended to Midnight by Israel.  Hamas rejected the extension with  rockets once again  launched from Gaza. against Israel. south. The latest toll in the conflict is 40 Israeli dead, with five  IDF soldiers fallen this weekend so far through Saturday night and a reported 1,000 dead in Gaza, including  several hundred  Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad fighters.

A local Pensacola community Stand for Israel rally is in the planning stages, with speakers drawn from the local rabbinate, pastors and public officials. Clearly security will be a priority for this public event, poised to balance yesterday’s  pro Hamas rally.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the New English Review. The featured image is of a pro-Hamas banner in Pensacola.