Nuanced on Hamas?

 

Since the atrocities of October 7^th there has a been a lot of appropriate condemnation of leftists who have sided with the Hamas savages. While these have been the worst, there are other leftists whose behavior has been bad enough – those who, while unwilling to go whole hog Hamas, push notions of false moral equivalences or hide their refusal to side fully with the victims behind some vague criticism of meanness in general. Several lefties have written that, while Hamas may have behaved badly, conservative Christians are just as big a danger or worse. Five and more centuries ago, there was little to choose between Christianity and Islam in terms of savagery, repression, intolerance, and brutal fanaticism. Jihads, crusades, pogroms, religious wars, tyrannizing and enslaving non-believers, forced conversions, and persecution of heretics were common practice in both Christian and Muslim domains. Over the last three or four hundred years, at different speeds in different places, Christianity mainly has adapted itself or at least resigned itself to liberal civilization. Islam mainly has not. This is a statistical statement of averages and one with many exceptions. There are many liberally minded Muslims and plenty of Christians who would go back to medieval authority if they could. But overall it is valid and a reason attempts to equate American Christians to Hamas or similar organizations are not only wrong, but at least suggestive of where the sympathies of those doing it lie.

An outfit has come up with a different sort of nuance. It is  running a TV spot which begins decrying the increase in antisemitism, “Jewish hate”, and then goes on to warn against anti-black, anti-Muslim, and anti-Asian hate. In the present, post-October 7^th context this is weak, dishonest, and a disservice to those suffering from antisemitism. The implications are first that "hatred" is being applied equally to Jews, blacks, Muslims, and Asians and second, that the trouble is coming from the main demographic group left out of the list – those awful, redneck Christian white folks. Both are false. American Jews now are facing numerous systematic, organized, vigorous acts of antisemitism going far beyond the nasty social media posts the ad warns against and coming from racially diverse, antisemitic, pro-Muslim groups of supporters of Hamas terrorists and the genocidal destruction of Israel, very few, if any, of whose members are Christian conservatives. That is an easily observable fact. It is harder to defend people when you refuse to admit where their danger is coming from.