WHAT IF AND WHY

 We, or at least much of us, perhaps most of us, have been the bouncing keyboard for those little ones with whom we walk hand in hand. Why is the sky blue? Why does it get dark at night? Why can't I have ice cream? What if I said no? What if I didn't look both ways and why and why and why. Endless streams of questions about the world, about people, about their places in this strange world to which they are adjusting.

When we tell them I don't know, unless we have a backup answer or suggestion, then we have made the first dent of many dents in their evaluation of the adults in their lives. They don't necessarily know all things though it was once presumed so by that child. Perhaps we can ask somebody else. Maybe we can look it up in a book or check on the computer.

 We can think about an answer that we think works. This is perhaps the best response if we are not sure of the answer. It teaches them through experience in a calm, mostly painless manner that the answers are not always out there. Sometimes you have to seek and dig for them in the most strenuous effort. More importantly the search for answers can give rise to other questions or scratching an itch that had not been there before. And thus, the world progresses, or so we hope.

However, I think we are now in the time when we are too lazy to actually seek and find for ourselves the real answers. We need to resist taking the easy way out and accepting the false ones ginned up by those who oppose independent thought. By those who want their own opinions to be the answers for everyone else's questions. Better yet give answers that will stop that questioning. That is ever so much better for a tyrant's rule over a nation.

But what if there are enough of us out there who insist on finding answers to questions which demand answers for with that answer or a viable path to it, the earth is in great peril in both its physical composition and for all who live on it and within its oceans and skies. We are all affected by the world around us. Both humans and animals. In fact, many of the species of the world are far better at sensing approaching ominous danger and react to it.

 Humans not so much and ironically, are generally the cause of so many neither problems of this world: existential, physical, emotional, moral. Choose any field and there we are. Some of us are trying to improve, to think deeper, better, and to come up with possibilities for a more viable future. Others smell not in the air and see and hear nought that should trouble them. They should have a plethora of what if and why questions. But they think that willful denial will keep them safe. Know not - worry not. They engage in massive denial and foolishly believe in magic answers ginned up by the lie tellers of the world.

Now we need to look around. First, take the physical world. So, I pick up a paper, and I see more about how France and Spain are being scorched not by a war between people but between people, mankind, and the necessities of preservation for life of humanity and the earth itself. I read yet another horrifying story. A massive earthquake in Japan.  Tornadoes shredding homes. Floods and drought forcing people out of their homes. Grave danger and massive uncertainty over huge swaths of the world.

So, what if we simply close our eyes and call this world gone wild a passing phenomenon? What if we ignore the underlying causes, deny them vehemently. Insult and punish those who say, no, it is otherwise. Hear the truth and know what we have been doing. We, mankind, have been destroying our own homes. We refuse to accept responsibility. We refuse to accept that in a headlong plunge to perhaps make things better, to have always 'more', somewhere along the line we made a wrong turn We forgot that for every action there is a reaction. For every consequence there is a cause. For every short-sighted plan, we became deaf to the cries of the vandalized Earth.

Even worse is the perennial truth of the message to be found in Shakespeare's plays as well as in many other pieces of literature throughout the ages. When man is unstable and the world is plagued with problems from a weird and unnatural Nature, we will find that man is also awry. Behaving in massively, grossly inhumane, thoughtless and cruel and uncaring manner towards others of our species, to the other living creatures of this planet.  Estranged, unusual paths for all. 

This joined malfunctioning has been noted by many and ignored by even many more from the beginning of time. We have continued to ignore it, to discount it even as we deal with terrific consequences. It has been a theme throughout the millennia. In the movie Odysseus when the gods are angry, as mankind has forgotten the moral laws of humanity set down by these gods, damage their realms and go beyond the red lines, the gods sow their anger at mankind which then suffers from catastrophes of Nature. 

Which one causes the other? How are they related? Are we denying that relationship? Do we anger the ruling gods even more by thumbing our noses at them and their concerns?

Now follow the thread all the way up to modern times. When we have attempted to relandscape the Earth's physical presence; when we challenge the Power ruling the skies, the heavens, the Earth, the oceans, all that is within those various tracts, the Power sees all. Though there have been huge doses of patience and forgiveness, inevitably the violations are too much, and the Power sends warning through Nature. 

Finally, the full anger and the disappointment of that Power is fiercely released. The consequences, the catastrophes upon the earth and upon humanity are clearly evident. Yet we continue to deny that connection, ignoring the consequences of their behavior, of their denial of truth. History is replete with periods of grossly misbehaving humanity punctuated by Nature gone rogue. Or is it not so rogue after all?

There used to be a commercial wherein the punchline was that it is not good to trifle with Mother Nature. That "Mother Nature” is only one aspect of the Power we know as the Lord Above even as many of us have given so many different names to it.

What if we have indeed angered that Power?

What if that Power has lost patience as people damage all that He has given them?

What if that Power has decided enough?! Perhaps it is time, once again, to try again, to wipe out the majority of mankind and just set up another trial.

The why should all be clear as glass, but are not, due to the deliberate smearing of it on the inside and without. We cannot see through to the truth of it all. We claim that it is through our strength, our power, our efforts to make a better world for all of humanity, even as we swim through fetid waters of falsehood and defiance. That defiance and denial inevitably reach an intolerable level and well, pick up a Bible, a history text and see what happens over and over again.

 We persist on the self-destructive path.

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

All the while we deny the truth. We continue to violate that wonderful gift given to us. We continue to mistreat and wage war on each other.

And if we continue to do the same, why should we expect anything different, anything other than what has been going on since time began?

Why? Oh, we know the answer to that.

What if ..............

HEROS OF OUR TIMES

   Heroes emerge from the ranks of regular people, whether the people are unknown or even known. Sometimes it is even harder for a well-known person to stand up and step up front and say what is right and what is true in the pressures that he knows or she knows is going to be applied to them. Such a person is the singer Boy George, a singer from decades ago. He was well-known, but more recently has been pretty quiet, out of the public eye.  

Suddenly, a couple of days ago I get an email, which I opened up, and it is a Jewish organization which is presenting his new song. His song is called Od Nirkod, We Will Dance Again, referring to October 7th and specifically the slaughter that took place there, at the Nova Festival and in the areas of the attacks. 

The whole turning of the world as they saw and fought ever so hard to state the wrong, deny the truth, and to spout forth words of hate against Israel, and in fact, all Jews, no matter how they try to paint over that truth. Cursing them and demeaning them for the "crime" of self-defense. For wanting this whole business to end, finally. To stop a violent manifestation of a Hate that burns within their breasts and black hearts. Hate spewing forth for the sin of Israel to defending itself, daring to do so, daring to finally want an end to all of this that has been going on since time immemorial.

One of the saddest things I find about this is how many people, upon hearing these words, this song and their reaction to it.  I quote "Wow, he is so brave!” Isn't that a sad commentary on life that to do the right thing, to behave as the song says, "like a human".  What does that say about us and the world? 

Yesterday, today, tomorrow,

Does it ever change.

Below you will find the lyrics. You can probably hear the song if you go to Aish, or Boy George's site, or YouTube or Spotify.

Well worth it and Kudos to Boy George, a modern-day hero.

Od Nirkod - We Will Dance Again

You say genocide, I say war.

When you’re attacked, it’s what the army’s for

Does it get ugly? You bet it does.

When I know you wanna kill, every last one of us.

Every last one of us. Every last one of us.

You never mention October 7. Young girls raped against trees.

Murdered brutally. For the crime of dancing. You condemn the Jews.

With selective memory. Musicians holding flags, mouthing like sheep.

Propaganda fueled by the internet. It feels so weak.

But trust me, we will dance again.

We will dance again.

We will dance again.

And there won’t be no war.

But if you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.

I don’t feel brave I just need to behave like a human.

But trust me, we will dance again.

We will dance again.

We will dance again.

And there will be no war.

But if you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.

I don’t feel brave I just need to behave like a human.

[In Hebrew] You say genocide, I say war, when they come to kill you.

MAYBE? YA' THINK?

  Maybe. Could be. That would explain a lot of things. So maybe I will follow that thread this posting and you can  decide for yourself. Read it. Taste it. Mull it over and see for yourself. What do you think of this possible interpretation or twist on a millennium old story or preachings or threat or promise. Decide for yourself.

This thought entered my mind when I was reading this morning's paper. The anger that is overwhelming this world. The inability of its inhabitants to communicate in logical, comprehensive and cooperative manner. The threats of wars almost as old as time, seemingly to go on almost as long as time will exist. Backstabbing.   Self-stabbing. The volume of stupid and harsh and inciting words and deeds and forever a total denial, deliberate ignoring and cherished ignorance of what has been laid out before us, time and time again.

It definitely makes those who buy into that road feel good for much of the time. Perhaps most of the time the better for it, I guess. Not to worry about what I have been told is something that you or I cannot fix. So, they set it aside, don their blinkers, forget about it and block out the uncomfortable vibes of the world. 

They can block out the evil contentions and frightening forecasts portended by the increased bubbling of the witch's caldron in which we have immersed ourselves with few ways or even desire to find a way out before we burn in too severe a manner to even begin, if we can, to heal. We should remember the powerful words of Lincoln at Gettysburg. To paraphrase them a bit. We must bind up the wounds of our nation, but we must also reach out and contribute to the binding of the wounds of the world. But we do not.

 Without that understanding, without knowing that we need to do this, that we cannot continue interminably on the same narrow and hostile path, all is in vain. Even when there are those who see through the fog to the truth, that too will not be enough. Unless and until those voices and volume grow in strength, are able to drown out the raucous destructive voices of the spoilers, to cancel out the Evil. yes, Evil words of the Devil and his minions, we will be on a treadmill going nowhere. 

We cannot continue to circle round and round on that treadmill of hate and violence until it collapses and takes us with it. Persisting in this behavior is a sign of idiocy and arrogance, a hubris greater than we have known before. And yet we refuse to understand the inevitable consequences as gates close behind us and the choices ahead grow ever fewer in number. 

Once again, we are ignoring the lessons of history, the lessons of the very Book, The Bible, that Book so venerated by much of the inhabitants of this planet. When Adam and Eve sinned by ignoring the words of the Lord; when the people of following generations continued on paths which offended the Lord; when they jeered at Noah; when they attempted to build the Tower of Babel, the consequences made themselves clear.

The entire history of mankind as seen through the Bible, through the words of the Bible which are reinforced by history, it is replete with periods of grave danger of warfare permeating the world. Of strange natural occurrences in a time of great danger where many lives are lost and where nature is dented and damaged, sometimes more, sometimes less, but generally of great consequence.

Now take a look around. What do we see? No, there is no "World War", but there are wars throughout the world and the wars these days don't have to be totally outright and openly in the world, but merely adding pressure points and threats, wielding pictures of horror, and participatory wars through proxies. Add to that the definitely strange and consequential weather patterns. France and Spain are aflame. People around the world are suffering under great heat waves. The lands are either plagued by drought or by floods, even in places most strange to have to suffer the storms and all sorts of odd weather phenomena. 

Does anything ring a bell here? I hear an entire carillon of bells.  But this time with a twist. This time even as some Jews, traitors to their souls, have gone down the wrong paths, have denied their G-dd and their religion, their culture and their unique history, a story of miraculous survival, and as they forget those Righteous who stood with us, there is a different message here.  

I firmly believe that all that is going on has been a message sent down to the children below, but not merely including His children, the people of the Jewish faith, of the nation. Not as a consequence meant for the Jewish people only. No, this time around, as can be seen in the words of the Bible, along with historical records, is being unleashed upon those who have oppressed the Lord's children who have chosen to go down once again, that ugly, repetitive road and blame all upon the Jews. Who now oppress and repress them and turn them into outliers and outcasts of society.

This time, I think all this weirdness is too much to ignore. The Lord and His representatives spoke to the people of Israel and to the people of the world. If there was not the proper behavior, the proper path through life, there would be much coming down to the people of the world. 

Yes, the nation was warned, but so too were the other nations and clearly, throughout history, we see that much of it also was meant for those who oppressed His people, His children, who chose the way of corruption rather than of goodness. In the meanwhile, we too suffer, and the people who know the right way suffer, but perhaps, perhaps the awful effects are meant as warning and punishment for those who punish us, who follow the wrong leaders, who would rid us, yet another one of the attempts guaranteed to fail.  

Yes. "Mene Mene Tekele Ooh-pharsin". Basically, the accounts of the world have been audited and found greatly wanting. We, along with those who walk on the proper pathways with us, among us, for us, will be okay.

Look around and see what man hath wrought. Will there be enough in the world to stop and take a look around and know deep within themselves, see what you, we, all of us, have brought down upon this world, upon yourselves Think deep. Think strong. Think a great deal of time. And then think about this theory?

Does it ring for you as it rings for me? 

Yesterday, today and tomorrow. 

History does repeat itself but there are often small changes that can make a great difference in the paths of history. 

 Our todays are such times needful of deep thought and honest evaluation.

Think on it.

As an addendum, here is a salute to Boy George who bravely stands with us, who speaks truth against the lies and boldly states he "Stands with the Jews and reminds all that  YES

  "WE WILL DANCE AGAIN!" 

Here is a site where you can hear this wonderful powerful song and bless Boy George.    

https://aish.com/?utm_source=ac

If this does not work, try Spotify or YouTube.

LOOP DE LOO, OR LOOP DE LAH

  And in fact, does it make a difference whether we're looping this way or the other way? Frankly, in the reality of today, I don't think it makes any difference. That is, unless and until those people who have seen the truth, who know the truth and who are sick and tired of the lying and the false pretenses and the shabby curtains placed in front of the truth, actually join hands within the nation and without, to force a change. 

Not with violence, not with bloodshed, but by actions, meaning stop donating to these funds for election. Boycott their rallies. Let the voices of the quiet ones actually be heard above the sounds of those who wreak havoc upon this nation. Those whom I sincerely believe are the majority of this nation but are over shouted, overwrought and they  have decided one way or another to give up the battle and concentrate solely on their own personal singular life. 

However, that's so clearly not the proper, useful nor productive means and manner and methods to introduce this change so necessary. We need to inspire those who have been banging their heads against brick walls for far too long, not even making a dent. In fact, we need to change ourselves if we are to change others, get them on board to join in the righteous campaign to take back our nation. For the people of the world to take back their nations. All done with the voice of the many overpowering the voices of the few.   

But how indeed do we in fact infuse the tired blood of so many, the resigned minds so clearly at the point of despair and trying to manage and even improve the situation, the overwhelming disruption of their lives and the nation's life over the past decade? What are the methods which will get our message through to those consuming the very fabric of their nations and do not spit it out refreshed, renewed, and repaired, but ever more damaged.  More severe rents in the fabric until we have nearly gotten to the end, to the point where there will be no fabric left at all. 

All nations' cynical, worse than useless, dangerous. and clearly corrupt members of current national political parties and the governments itself must step back from the swamp and the cesspool into which they have immersed themselves. Return to dry land where progress can be made and voices can be heard, no sound deafening qualities of water to interfere with the transmission of the desperate and determined voices. Those voices telling those who have trashed the nations that we are at the end of our ropes. We have no more energy nor desire to allow for the rot to grow the infection now eating away at our foundations.

The political body of this nation must allow for the demand that the political moral reasoning of the Declaration followed by the Constitution must be reinvigorated. Recalled to memory, to purpose and to action. The only way to do that is to play our own game of Red Rover and push through when and where we find the weakest place in their filth and lies. When we demand the reinstitution of true morality, that the strictures which they have piled up high blocking true morality to see the light and take its place once again within the hearts and souls and deeds of the people of the world.

We must try and reject false premises, that morality and courage and truthfulness and dreams are not determined by skin color, or religion or any other so-called faults. Hate perpetrated on a group of people and cynically using people to deflect the truth rising out of the miasma of crooked government must be called out and discarded. The false sense of security that one group feels as they engage in the nefarious approved negative manner and actions against the targeted groups must be clearly shown as fake premises. 

Simply a small space of time between the fate of the first group and the fate of other groups. Hate has a life of its own and a deep and tough shell around it. approved as a life of its own. Once allowed and planted deep in the weak soil of a challenged nation it becomes extremely difficult to uproot, to defy and not only discard it, but to trash it permanently. 

In fact, the very air of our nation must decompose and recompose itself to the point where the poison that spews forth from the corrupt is negated and disappears into the past of history. We must be of courage. We must turn our backs to the corrupt and amoral politicos who have only their twisted souls and lying tongues, heavily engaged in self-aggrandizement. Who have deserted all positive paths in their intense need to amass power and influence as well as grow the numbers of their bottom line.  

We must understand this nation was not formed and founded by the desires of those wishing to only increase their wealth and power and grow their bottom-line numbers and leave behind all else. So bad is it that within this nation we now have people going hungry, parents and caretakers skipping meals so that children can have a morsel to eat. Whe were ejected from their homes even as the crazed 1% build massive and multiple homes for their families. Who feast upon tasty and expensive tidbits of food even as others stand in line by food pantries running out of food. Who dress      extravagantly, ignoring the worn and ragged clothes worn by those with nothing left. 

Even as we stand by, remain silent or supportive of the fascistic and communistic tactics of violent unconstitutional laws targeting chosen groups to be demonized and accused of all things terrible. Chased down. Even to be killed. To be ripped away from families. To remain in detention, invisible. Or to be deported to strange counties, even to warring nations. To be denied rights and be treated as less than human. To be beaten by the moral descendants of Nazis and criminal "law” enforcement. And always, just take a peek behind them and you will see another 'chosen' group already under serious attack. 

We must "screw our courage to the sticking point" and fix our nation. Encourage other nations to do the same, and yes, ironically, using a phrase of our oh so beloved head of government, we will be able to "make America great again". Only this time in the right way, in the moral way, in the positive way.

 Bob the Builder says, yes, we can. Dora will use her map and bring along all those young, believing children. And we, the adults, whom will we follow? Will we choose the right Pied Pipers, or will we fall prey to the false tunes they play? Mesmerizing us in the wrong manner along the wrong path

The choices are up to us, as always. Methodology? Well, that, my friends, I leave for those heads brighter, wiser, younger than mine All I can do here is use words that encourage change. Words that abhor violence. Words that encourage us to use legal manners powerfully, positively, and rid all nations of the parasites which are now sucking the nation's blood from so many places.

Anybody out there willing to stand up, stand against the corruption, the nastiness, the falsehoods that so permeate this nation along with the rest of the world? I think these people are few and far between, if they can be found at all.

What do you think?

Are we condemned to repeat the past of those terrible yesterdays? Drag it into today and condemn our tomorrows before they have even arrived? Or can we change things? Can we positively and powerfully effect those changes? Grow new roots with stronger fabric and fortified foundations.

 Can we?

 Might we?

 Will we?

FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT

    The words of the title have been the mantra of the Jewish people from the time of Abraham, Avram, the very first Jew all the way through to the most recent generation. And those to come as well. It seems almost impossible to picture such a thing happening under the darkness of our todays, especially in the sadness of today, Tisha B'av, a day which is of accursed memory in Jewish history, with many tragedies taking place on that day. 

However, we only have but to look behind us and see what we have come through, resurrected ourselves, climbed from subbasements to floors high in the sky. Worked our way from poverty and darkness to prosperity and sunshine. Reinventing ourselves as necessary, resurrecting ourselves as an intact nation sharing the same goals and willing to share our gifts with the world in general. Refusing to give way to our enemies, refusing to acquiesce in their dastardly plans for us and to confound them time and time again as all their evil comes to nought. 

It never seems to penetrate brainless heads and stone hard hearts and blackened souls. No matter how many times we have told them Am Yisroel Chai -Lanetzach - the People of Israel Live - Forever, they refuse to take its truth to heart. They ignore the historical proofs to be found in the tomes of history and in the very survival and revival of the Jewish people, overcoming any and all horrors perpetrated upon them. 

Even as those same historical records state the results, the destiny of those who attack Israel, the attempts to exile us from our land forever, to deny us a safe and assured life within the nations of our Exile, where we were greatly contributory to their wellbeing, who were given our loyalty.  They self-condemned themselves and took their places in history as those nations defeated, now merely dust in the winds of the earth. 

All the while we found our way out of their choking dust and rebuilt our lives, as many times as necessary, at least until the inhabitants of this world give up on the hate and instead understand that we humans all work better in the light rather than in the darkness and futility of hate and bias. Working together as a team provides for the strength of many rather than the weaker efforts of the single.      

 We have ultimate faith in our permanent survival no matter how bad it becomes. Such is the Power of our Defender, the Father of Our People, the Eternal Guardian of His and those who are good to them, who might turn His head aside for a time, but will always return. Faith is what has given us the courage and the strength to live through unlivable times, to know that some will survive out of this, whole, and able to relate the truth of the fiendish deeds of the acolytes of the Devil. To rebuild once again lives destroyed by an eternal, filthy hate that has become a favorite meme, a practice of the basest humans of this planet, the abominations in the world who would do us a great, big favor if they would go POOF!

These ugly critters are to be found contaminating the earth worldwide, sneaking in wherever they see an opening with ugly plans and motivations which inevitably shatter the world into warring tribes, resulting in war and periods of hate inimical to the survival and the betterment of humanity. Worse is that these deficient creatures are to be found within all, even within those of us, our fellow Jews who refuse to stick within their people and instead seek a nonexistent reassurance from others, turn traitor to themselves and their people, and call out for their own destruction. 

From time immemorial, there have always been those in the world who cast aside warnings of oncoming events, of humankind gone astray. From co-citizens of Noah to the builders of the Tower of Babel. To the shepherds of Lot to the bad crowd at the time of the Exodus. To those of little faith of sustenance within the desert, or the return of Moses. Or for a safe entry into the Promised Homeland. Always there are doubters. Always there are spoilers. Always there are those who called down hell upon their own people in the name of being more successful in an often-unfriendly world. 

They have called doom down upon their own heads No matter what seems to be is not always what it is. We do not always have the ability to fathom the Lord, but the Faith that ultimately it will all sort out into the way it should be, until the time of the true Messiah is strong. Times of peace and goodness. When future historians will be shocked at how low humanity had sunk. How long they had insisted on clinging to and keeping tight hold on the basest of the emotions and motivations and actions of humanity.

Would that we learn soon. That we turn the yesterdays into lessons from which to better todays and certainly turn the tomorrows into the world it should be. 

WORDS OF WISDOM AND TRUTH

 There are many, many, many people who can and do right better than I can. At times what they write is so good that I feel I must pass it on to my readers. One such essay is written by Jonathan Tobin, a brilliant writer as well as an intelligent man who speaks truth in his writing and presents it in a way that is easy to understand and to internalize. With great humility I present the following essay for my readers. Read, think and think deep. 

Jonathan S Tobin is the editor in chief of the Jerusalem News Syndicate. I publish his essay here on my site for it is too important to miss.

The lies behind Mamdani's Netanyahu stunt are the real threat.

It didn’t take a statement from President Donald Trump to ensure that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani isn’t going to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in Manhattan for the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings in September.

Like all world leaders, Netanyahu is protected by the terms of the treaty by which the United States secured the placement of the world body in New York City in the years after the Second World War. Moreover, the United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, whose corrupt former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, indicted the Israeli leader on false charges of having “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s population of food, water, fuel and medicine in 2024. Khan resigned under fire because of a different issue entirely: accusations of sexual misconduct.

An empty threat

The Trump administration has rightly sought to dismantle the court, whose activities are a travesty of justice and motivated solely by political prejudice against the West, and especially Israel. The ICC’s influence may have made it impossible for Netanyahu to travel to most places in the world. However, it has no jurisdiction in the United States, and federal authorities would prevent Mamdani from interfering with the prime minister’s ability to visit New York or anywhere else in the country.

Mamdani is smart enough to know this. Why then, did he tell The New York Times that he had asked city lawyers to see if he had the authority to honor his campaign pledge to arrest the prime minister, whom he has smeared as a “war criminal”?

The answer isn’t any mystery. To those who support the Democratic Socialist mayor, Israel is the epitome of international evil. They truly believe that the actions the Jewish state took to defend itself against the Palestinian Arab terrorists who launched a war on Oct. 7, 2023, with the largest mass slaughter since the Holocaust were not merely wrong or excessive. They believe that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. And no amount of reporting, historical knowledge or the actual meaning of the word will convince them otherwise.

The ‘genocide’ myth

Wars are raging around the globe that have caused far greater civilian casualties than the one fought against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, who were responsible for the orgy of murder, rape, burnings, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction that happened on Oct. 7.

But that doesn’t matter. Nor do the reasoned arguments of military experts who have repeatedly stated that Israel’s war against Hamas was conducted in a manner that was more moral and produced fewer casualties than against any foe in an urban environment—let alone one that deliberately, as Hamas did, hid behind non-combatants and sought to endanger as many of their compatriots as possible. Moreover, even the United Nations and The New York Times have finally admitted that it was Hamas that was blocking the distribution of food and other supplies to civilians in Gaza even though both spent most of the war denying it.

If you believe the existence of one Jewish state on the planet is not only illegitimate but that the key to solving all of the world’s problems is bound up in its destruction, then you are ready to believe any charge against it, no matter how false or outrageous. The toxic ideologies that enable such bizarre notions are also responsible for the surge in worldwide antisemitism, not least in New York City, where Mamdani has been forced to acknowledge that Jews are being targeted for hate crimes on his watch out of all proportion to their percentage of the population. And that is a far greater problem than a mayor who thinks that pleasing his base obligates him to make empty threats about arresting Israel’s head of government.

The embrace of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism by the American education system and so much of popular culture has materially altered public discourse not merely about race, but about antisemitism and Israel. The belief that Israel and Jews are “white” oppressors, and that Palestinians are oppressed “people of color” who are their perennial victims, is contrary to the facts about both peoples. Jews are the most oppressed people of the last two millennia, and the majority of Israelis are people of color by the definitions of the American left since they trace their origins to North Africa and the Middle East.

The perpetuation of the conflict is the function of the fact that any outcome other than Israel’s destruction and the genocide of the Jews living there is an injustice the Palestinians cannot abide.

Once you buy into those myths, it’s easy to believe the blood libels about Jews committing genocide, whose downfall could liberate all of humankind. And if you swallow that, it’s easy to understand why a Democratic Party under the sway of Mamdani’s fellow left-wingers has accepted the hostility to Israel that has, alongside opposition to enforcing immigration laws, become the organizing principle of American politics.

Social-media algorithms versus facts

The real problem behind Mamdani’s latest publicity stunt isn’t merely a function of unjustified anger at Israelis and Jews. As an essay by historian Niall Ferguson and AI researcher John-Clark Levin in The Free Press argues, the same factors are responsible for the growth of Holocaust denial and what they call “The Death of History.”

Ferguson and Levin believe what we are witnessing in our public discourse, both on the left and the far-right, is a “comeback” of the same sort of genocidal hatred for Jews that led to the Shoah in the mid-20th century. Ferguson has spent a lifetime writing histories and producing documentaries warning that accepting these vile ideas leads to tragedy. But he has come to believe that his work—and that of other historians—is increasingly looking like it was all in vain because it is being overridden by social-media algorithms designed to spread hate. While in the past, thought leaders like conservative writer William F. Buckley were able to banish believers in these ideas from the political mainstream, now such efforts are failing.

Instead of denying the Holocaust, political commentators and podcasters on the far-right like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes “mock and celebrate it.” That amuses right-wing youth, who get their knowledge of the world from social-media feeds. Those on the left then “cleverly blend it with anti-Zionism and anti-capitalism.”

Ferguson and Levin point out that “as it is young voters who are most susceptible to these trends, the implications for the future of American politics are chilling.” It explains a lot about Mamdani’s appeal. It also shows how he can flip the narrative about the conflict between Israel and its genocidal foes. That is what is behind the accusations against Netanyahu and the widespread belief that it is Israel that is committing “genocide.”

AI images that feed rage

The lies that Mamdani—and those who echo his smears in outlets like the Times—tell about Israel are easily refuted by those who array the facts about the conflict against them in the same manner serious historians can answer Holocaust deniers. Still, the problem is that this only works against arguments that at least pretend to be reasoned.

But the algorithms that spread the new big antisemitic lies aren’t pretending to be rational. They are a function of manipulated images and rage about alleged crimes that are difficult to refute online. As Ferguson and Levin note, “The algorithms reflect our own vices back to us—and magnify them. As long as we indulge our wrathful impulses, we’ll see more rage bait that stokes them. As long as we give in to our short attention spans, our news feeds will carpet-bomb our brains with dopamine. As long as we guzzle flattering lies, the truth will be muscled off our screens by propaganda.”

That’s a sobering thought that puts the failures of pro-Israel voices to effectively counter the “genocide” blood libels in perspective.

With respect to Holocaust denial, historians now feel as if they are helpless to combat the fallout of so many lies.

“In the face of an avalanche of AI-powered anti-history, the real historians are powerless. We thought we could prevail in a fair fight about what really happened in the past. We naively believed that, if we went to the right archives, and read the right documents, and summarized them with the right footnotes, and published our scholarly books and peer-reviewed articles, then the Holocaust deniers would be driven from the field. What fools we were,” Ferguson and Levin conclude.

Can virtue defeat hate?

The same problem applies to the debate about Israel. Similar rage-based distortions about the actions of the Jewish state and those of its genocidal foes—combined with a biased media whose journalists have been indoctrinated in leftist ideologies about “white” oppressors—have materially altered public opinion. If a plurality of Americans now tell pollsters that they believe Israel has committed “genocide,” it’s not because of anything Netanyahu has said or done. It’s because we live in a time when fast-paced technology has the power to persuade people to accept patently false assertions with much greater ease than the manner in which the Nazis employed print, film and radio nearly a century ago.

Answering this isn’t going to be enabled with attempts to ban hate speech. It will, among other things, require the clever use of social media and technology. But as Ferguson and Levin assert, there is more to it than that. “We must recover a shared sense of moral responsibility not to contribute to the conditions that let a Fuentes thrive,” they say. “It’s a lesson that dates back to Cleon in ancient Athens. Ultimately, as Plato and Aristotle discovered, the only bulwark against demagogues is a people virtuous enough to resist their lure.”

A leering young mayor peddling blood libels against Jews like Mamdani doesn’t seem to fear such a turnaround. Indeed, in an age where virtue seems conspicuously absent in our politics and culture, optimism about the future can be difficult to maintain.

Still, giving up isn’t an option. And the rise of current advocates for antisemitism, the hatred of Jews and Israel, like the mayor, isn’t unprecedented in history. They have been defeated before by decent people who are ready to heed fact-based journalism in the same way they have sometimes heeded the lessons of real, rather than AI-distorted, history.

What is required is not just better use of AI and social media by the forces of truth but an appeal to higher virtues by a new generation of journalists, artists and faith leaders that will undermine the appeal of social media-driven hate. It’s a tall task, but there is no alternative available but to begin that fight.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

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