Gaslighting in Defense of Bigotry

Columbia’s protesters said the quiet part out loud. Why isn’t the left listening?

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The ”Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at Columbia University in New York on April 23, 2024. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images)

“Go back to Poland!”

I’m trying to practice what I preach. I tell people that we shouldn’t nutpick: Don’t take the worst examples of one side and claim they’re representative of everybody you disagree with. Don’t let the trolls manipulate you. And my advice doesn’t end there. I often say you shouldn’t let frustration with the media overwhelm you. Also, don’t catastrophize, and don’t let recency bias lead you to think everything is worse than ever. Don’t let your anger get the better of you.   

But when I hear pro-terrorist radicals shout “Go back to Poland!” and see so many shrug it off,  it is difficult for me to follow my own advice. So I’m going to try to work calmly through all of the reasons I find it so difficult to maintain my composure. 

Let’s start with “Go back to Poland.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    There are a lot more antisemites cheering on Iran and Hamas on college campuses than there were Nazis shouting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville.

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  2. Hjhodges3

    May I be so bold as to say with respect to Barry Goldwater that "gaslighting in the defense of bigotry is a vice."

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  3. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

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    Tmcke

    Sloppy attempt to make a point. Yes young people are not convinced that Israel is not an outpost of the West - a late colonial enterprise.

    But let's get serious too about the protested. Most are just kids and since most are not Jewish, then few have the ready made talking points that many Jews have. (And please understand the I attended college in NYC from 1969 to 1973 and if you dared to ask what about the Palestinians) a Jewish kid with spout a series of facts that were to be frank not something I could argue about).

    So the kids don't have a deep understanding of Israel. Ok

    And they are kids too - inflamed with righteousness.

    Decades ago, a professor at Cooper Union summarized the "free speech movement" as about the right to say fuck in the classroom.

    As someone who remembers the intensity of protest after the Kent State shootings, I suggest not over generalizing here.

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    1. Betsybowditch

      Andrew O’Heihr made the same point on salon.com: Strident moral positions and overheated rhetoric are features of student activism, which is sometimes effective and at other times purely symbolic; every generation, it’s fair to say, inherits or creates its own iteration.

      I was in college from the late 1970s to early 1980s. Nestle was marketing baby formula in the developing world, which was mixed with unclean water, creating ill effects for infants fed with it by mothers who bought into “this is the modern way to feed your children.”

      A friend who was eating a Nestle bar was confronted by an activist who informed him, “With each bite, you are killing a baby.” Not the way to convert someone to your cause.

      One problem in talking about Israel is the different components. Gaza, the West Bank and Israel proper are quite different places. Those who talk about settler colonialism are often referring to the West Bank where Palestinian displacement is evident.

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    Anne W (Raw5254)

    Well said, Jonah. Every day, when I see the latest on what is being allowed/encouraged to happen on American campuses, I feel sick. And, yes, the hypocrisy is obvious, but neither the press nor the Biden administration wants to upset these spoiled, misinformed youth (and faculty).

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  6. Betsybowditch

    Was talking to my brother who is very wise and an accountant. He feels targeting universities for divestment is unlikely to affect anything. He heard a USC student declare his school was making millions off of investments in Israel and felt that extremely unlikely.

    He said if you are unhappy with US aid to Israel go protest in Washington.

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    Leo

    Interesting article but mild Grammar nitpick, "Communists killed exponentially more innocent people than Israel is even alleged to have killed" doesn't mean anything, you can't just compare two numbers and say they have an exponential relationship. When

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    1. Betsybowditch

      Nice catch. I am weary of trying to explain to students what exponential growth means. Many of them use it to mean “a lot.”

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        Leo

        It's really odd it means it given how slow something exponentially growing at 1% year actually increases.

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    2. BadgerBill

      Don’t leave me in suspense: “When”. “When” what? The world wants to know.

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  8. Morah Nechamah

    I tried but I could not say it better. Brilliant.

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  9. Helbock

    YES

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  10. Avatar photo
    Kenton A. Hoover

    It’s not nutpicking when you have an entire silo of almost identical nuts to choose from.

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    1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

      But I don't think it's an identical silo. What gives me great pause is that I assume there are a lot of kids like this one, who seems thoughtful:
      https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/27/opinions/yale-student-palestinian-protests-berlin/index.html

      I have no idea what proportion that kid represents. But my lack of knowledge gives me great humility.

      I'd compare that to the voices like Jonah and his fans, who believe the best argument to create a safe Israel is to paint all protestors with the exact same brush. (I actually think that hurts the cause of protecting Israel, for what it's worth). Those who insist on seeing the diversity of protestors and deciding they're an identical silo of nuts is making the common mistake of believing that his own certainty requires black-and-white distinctions, and that that certainty somehow represents wisdom.

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      1. Christopher Lake

        Jackrabbit, has Jonah truly "painted all protestors with the exact same brush," as you describe him doing? Is it really fair to say that this is what he has done regarding the protestors? You claim that "Jonah and his fans" think that doing this (according to you) is the way to make "the best argument to create a safe Israel."

        When I read this article, I see Jonah referring to *very specific phrases* which have been heard (and captured on videos, which he and others have watched, including me) from *some* protestors, such as "Go back to Poland!" and "Globalize the Intifada!" He clearly states that *if* you chant such things, you are supporting terrorist radicals-- "if" being the operative word!-- and he is correct, because there is no other *logical* way to interpret those chants, without devolving into word salad nonsense, *other* than being supportive of terrorism against Israel.

        However, I don't see anywhere in this article that Jonah *even implies* that all, or most, of the protestors are chanting pro-terrorism slogans. Moreover, as a "Jonah fan," I wish that you wouldn't paint *us* all with the exact same brush by stating, so very clearly, as you have here, that we, as his fans, *also* supposedly believe that the best way to make an argument for creating a safe Israel is to "paint all of the protestors with the exact same brush." I certainly haven't done that. I haven't seen many other readers at "The Dispatch" do that. A few have, yes, but not many, and not most.

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        1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

          You make some good points; I used sloppy language.

          First off, I, too, am a Jonah fan. And you're right, he went to great pains to resist the urge to nutpick, even if he ended up doing a bit of it (at least he was self-aware).

          Where I think he erred (and has been erring for quite some time now) is that he finds lots of nuance with people he agrees with, and very little with those he doesn't. I would love to see him wrestle with how to characterize the protests once faced with the peaceful Jewish voice I linked to above. But his pieces almost always start from a thesis that is on one side, and doesn't do nearly enough (outside of a few asides) to account for the other side.

          If you were to say "most pundits do exactly that," you'd be right. But Jonah is supposed to be different. He carefully and thoughtfully considers the pro's and con's of issues (typically), which is why his writing is often filled with tangents that take him on long-winded tours to explore the other side.

          But I just don't see him doing that on this issue.

          I do disagree with you characterization of the commenters below. Far too many of them have flattened this issue down to "us vs. them," and "good guys vs. bad guys" with far too little acknowledgement of the heart-wrenching grief that comes with the loss of life. Some of them are verging on bloodlust, as though they think that demonstrating little regard for the loss of life is the precondition for being viewed as a realist who is militarily strategic. Not all of them, but some are exhibiting that bloodlust. But a substantial portion of them have flattened the issue until it has no nuance.

          I don't know how any reasonable person can not be terribly conflicted by this crisis. Terribly, terribly conflicted. I don't see enough inner conflict in the comments below.

          I will tell you that I am generally pro-Israel on this issue; I am pro-free speech but think the protestors have broken university rules, and should be removed by the police at this point. But one can make that point *and* acknowledge that many (most?) of the protestors are actually more like the peaceful voice I linked to above. Doing so costs nothing, and it ensures that the most bloodthirsty "destroy everything, including every child, until Hamas is exterminated" voices at least can't de-humanize the protesters.

          If Jonah were to be "classic Jonah" and go to pains to explain the peaceful good-heartedness of some of the protesters, he could *still* say he disagrees with them. He just would have to balance that and say "many of these protesters seem to be good-hearted who wish no harm... I just disagree with them." He would have to be more careful to avoid implying that a few nuts among the campus protesters is somehow representative of campus protesters. He wouldn't, for instance, have a subhead that says "campus protesters said the quiet part out loud," which certainly sets a tone, and *implies* that the campus protesters are speaking with one antisemitic voice.

          And here is why this important. I've been trying to study this issue as much as one can, as we all are. I started off as anti-protester as one could imagine. Because I bought the hype that the prevalent belief system among the protesters was pro-Hamas and antisemitic. The media created that ones-sided dynamic. The Dispatch was more careful than most... but there articles all kinda skew in one direction. And so I bought it. Especially since Dispatch is probably my most trusted source. I bought it (that's on me).

          Then I started reading other points of view, including the CNN piece I linked to above; including Isaac Saul who tries to round up coverage and opinions that don't fit a tribal box. And I get very confused, because those points-of-view don't square with The Dispatch coverage. Suddenly what I thought was a vey straightforward issue is full of TONS of nuance. No clear good guys or bad guys (well, Hamas is clearly a bad guy). So The Dispatch's coverage, while decent, is still disappointing me. I'm still searching for a news source that will contemplate ALL of that nuance. Because that's the nuance that makes this so profoundly difficult. Searching for that level-headed nuance is why I've been a subscriber of The Dispatch since its founding. And I really question what perspectives The Dispatch editors are (missing? ignoring?) such that they don't publish that side of it.

          I'm just disappointed. That disappointment perhaps led me to use sloppy language. My apologies.

          When The Dispatch publishes stories that highlight the humanity of the pro-peace* protesters, side-by-side with articles that highlight the trauma that Jews on campus are feeling, and try to wrestle with that, then The Dispatch will be truly trying to grapple with what all good-hearted critical thinkers in America are trying to grapple with. Until then, they're parroting tribal points (though, not nearly as egregiously as 99% of all other media).

          * my asterisk: Don't mistake my "pro-peace" descriptor to mean I'm in favor of unilateral ceasefire. I think that would disarm Israel and expose them to more terror attacks. I'm referring to the non-antisemitic peaceful intents of many of the protesters... whether or not they have the foreign policy chops to recommend a military strategy.

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          1. Christopher Lake

            Thank you for the very thorough and very thoughtful reply, Jackrabbit. It's interesting that you mention what you see as "a significant portion" of the commenters here flattening this situation into an "us vs. them" situation, because Jonah used somewhat similar language, in this piece, about those particular protestors which he sees as being anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas-- he described them as not all, or most, of the protestors, but rather, as "a significant fraction," and he expressed frustration over what he sees as most mainstream news outlets treating these attitudes as being either almost non-existent, or as very rare, isolated attitudes among the protestors. Hence, the title of this piece.

            Jonah sees much of the media as being involved in gaslighting, regarding the very real anti-Jewish bigotry of, again, not all, or most, but "a significant fraction" of the protestors. I think that he has a valid point. I've seen such gaslighting and dismissal from more than a few media sources, and it is very, very frustrating to me, and I'm not Jewish, so I can imagine that it strikes even deeper for Jonah. I hear what you are saying, about your perceiving him to be much less nuanced when writing on this war, and the issues and protests around it, than he is when writing on other situations. I hear you, and I hear your passion and frustration about it, but I'm not entirely sure that I agree with your perception. I think that he certainly *tried* to be nuanced in this piece, making qualification after qualification that he was referring to *certain groups* among the larger protestors, certain groups which were chanting specific anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas slogans. As far as him not devoting space to Jewish voices among the protestors, I admit that I haven't read every Dispatch article that he has written on the subject, so I'm a bit reticent about stating, unequivocally, that he hasn't written about Jewish peace demonstrators, when honestly, I *don't know* if he has written about them or not. The Dispatch puts out so much content that I freely admit that I can't keep up with all of it, so Jonah may have written about Jewish peace activists, at some point, since October 7th, and I could have missed it. I'm not trying to cop out here-- I just don't know.

            I also admit that there may well be more highly vengeful voices in the comments here, leaving the impression that they don't care for the lives of Palestinians, than I have seen, myself. I have seen a few people using inflammatory rhetoric that was out of line, and which unsettled me, but they seemed like the exceptions, to me, in the comments here. I can only speak of what I've seen. Maybe I just haven't spent enough time in the comments sections since October 7th. It's certainly possible that I've missed some terrible, bloodthirsty comments against Palestinians in general. I have seen a few but not many. One of the realities of my everyday life is that with having Cerebral Palsy, and not being married, or having a roommate, I basically do almost everything in my daily life for myself, which can simply take much more time than even for a physically able-bodied person in the same life situation. In that vein, it's quite possible that I haven't spent as much time in the comment sections here as many other people have, and for that reason, maybe I've missed some very bad comments on this war and related subjects.

            I will admit that, as a non-expert in military and war matters, when I hear people calling for "peace" between Israel and Hamas, right now, at this time, I'm just not sure, at all, as to what they see that "peace" as looking like, in terms of practical, on-the-ground reality. I am concerned that such a peace, at this time, would only allow Hamas to regroup and inflict more terror, whether that would be soon, or eventually, down the line. Believe me, I don't want any more deaths in this conflict, period, other than deaths of actual terrorists. However, with it being documented that Hamas *deliberately uses* Palestinian civilians as human shields, partially for purposes of furthering their anti-Israel propaganda machine, it seems to be a very tragic fact, to me, that as long as Hamas prolongs the conflict, there will be more Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas *wants* those casualties. Hamas *literally tries* to make them happen and then blames Israel for them. Is Israel doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, within the context of fighting a war against a terrorist organization which is seeking Israel's destruction, and which uses civilians as human shields? I don't know the answer to that question. I honestly don't know. I hope the answer is "yes," but I don't know.

            The more that I read about Hamas ideology, from their own documents and teachings, it seems to be an ideology which actually, and quite strongly, prizes death (and often, violent death) more than it actually prizes life, which makes its fighters formidable opponents against Israel, to the degree that Israel does not share, and live out, that ideology. What does calling for peace with such a death-prizing organization entail, if the organization (Hamas) will not lay down its arms and commit to no further terrorist attacks against Israel? Hamas doesn't even want a two-state solution. They want the destruction of Israel, as articulated in Hamas documents. Another complication in this situation is that Hamas ideology has been taught, for several years now, in Palestinian schools. Tragically, many Palestinian children have been schooled and raised in this ideology of Jew-hatred, and have grown into adulthood, seeing killing Jews and dying martyrs' deaths, as terrorists, as being honorable pursuits.

            Does this mean that Palestinian children, or other civilians, should be targeted by Israel? Of course not. Not at all. I mourn the death of any innocent person in this war, or any war, and I want the deaths of innocent people to be avoided, as much as they reasonably can be, in this war. It would help, greatly, though, if Hamas did not use civilians as human shields.

            A few more thoughts on Jonah, and his even-handedness (or not, depending on one's perception) when writing about the war and the protestors-- again, I do think that he *tried* to be nuanced in this piece. Maybe he will address the subject of Jewish peace activists in a future article. I would be interested to read it. I have to say, I have strong convictions on the necessity for Israel to defend itself, and to render Hamas ineffectual, as much as is reasonably possible, and I'm not Jewish. If I were Jewish, and still holding similar views, I'm not sure that I would be able to be as even-handed as I think Jonah has been in his writings on these subjects (at least, the writings that I've personally read from him, thus far).

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