The Blood Libel

In olden days, this entry would have been in the “What Media Bias?” series but we all know about that – this isn’t just about the specific lie.

Rashida Tlaib posts on her X account the accusation that Israeli settlers – backed by the IDF – beat an American citizen to death in the West Bank. The American citizen being a man born in Florida but visiting family in the West Bank; with news accounts saying he was just there to have a good time (because people always visit war zones just for a lark). Then Tlaib issues the call for us to get on the stick and start punishing all Israel for this crime.

Tlaib is a known and egregious liar so you instantly take it with a grain of salt but you decide to check into it. The primary source for the stories is the Palestinian Health Ministry. These are the same people who claim that war in Gaza has claimed 55,000 Palestinian lives, over half of whom are children. So, you know: straight nonsense. So, in addition to knowing that Tlaib is a liar, we also know that the primary source of the story is from a liar.

What we do know for certain is that the man is dead because he was beaten. That’s about it. Everyone saying anything else beyond that is merely speculating when not outright lying. From what I can tell, there was some sort of confrontation with no confirmation of who started it. But, of course, Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank do not get along. The sort of Israelis willing to live in such a doubtful location are, face it, the most ardent of Zionists. And the Palestinians have been taught from childhood that Israelis are evil. Won’t take much to get a fight started – a shouted insult or even an insulting look might set things off and you’ve got a fight with people hurt or killed.

To be sure, just like all people around the world, there are Israeli jerks. That is, Israelis who are mean and stupid just like there are mean and stupid Americans, Brazilians and Gambians. And, of course, mean and stupid Palestinians. What I’m saying here is that, sure, it could have been an Israeli who started the fight. But I also note in one of the articles about the incident, the dead man – after being lauded as the kindest, warmest person who ever lived in the whole, wide world – is described by his family as a man who “[died] protecting his family’s land from settlers who were attempting to steal it”.

This is a bit of a jarring note. Now, perhaps his family is merely trying to give his death a heroic cast – Palestinian culture currently placing a high value on dying fighting the Jews – but to say he “died protecting his land from settlers” doesn’t indicate a guy who was merely visiting the West Bank for a good time. Like he went there with a purpose. Perhaps that purpose being to stir up violence which could then be used as Palestinian propaganda against Israel. This doesn’t mean the man wanted to be killed – or even should have been killed – but it does show that a deep investigation is warranted before we get all upset with Israel over it.

But that is not how things work in the modern world. Had a little discussion with a Jewish friend on X: he had brought up the fact that while people complain about Jewish bankers, the bottom line is that lots of Jews are bankers (and lawyers) in the West because for the longest time they weren’t allowed to be anything else. They couldn’t integrate. Specific laws prevented it – including bans on Jews owning land and so forth. To be sure, that isn’t the case today (pro tempore in Europe and Canada), but the Western Jewish culture just isn’t geared to get a Jewish guy going, “I think I’ll buy a farm in Kansas”. To be sure, there were Jewish people involved in all aspects of the growing USA (after all, Levi Strauss invented blue jeans), but America has always been a little odd as its always been easier to integrate into our life if you want to. But, still, even in America, lots of Jewish bankers and lawyers because, culturally, that’s what they were geared towards.

This brings us to try to understand what Zionism was and remains: it is an attempt to give the eternal alien a home. Technically, this could have been done anywhere in the world, of course. Could have carved out 8,500 square miles in the USA, Australia or lots of other places around the world and done the same thing as was done in Israel – given a land to Jews for Jews to live in and rule themselves. Israel was chosen because of the Jew’s historic connection to it and it was nearly empty at the time of the first Zionists who began arriving in Israel in the 1880’s (and there was, of course, a Jewish population already residing there at the time: as far as we can tell, since the time of Abraham there has always been some Jewish people in Israel).

And it really was pretty empty: according to the Ottoman census of 1849 – 99 years before Israel became independent – the population of Jerusalem was 5,800. To give you a good idea: in the Old City (which was pretty much the total city in 1849) there are currently more than 31,000 people. Modern Jerusalem has nearly a million people in it. So, 5,800 to start. Pretty small. And this was by far the biggest city in what is today Israel. Today between Israel, Gaza Strip and West Bank, about 15 million people live. This is more than have ever lived there (estimates are under Roman rule it was a few million, tops). Nobody really knows what the population was 200 years ago, but guesses are about 100,000, mixed between Jews, Muslims and Christians. Bottom line, almost everyone alive in that area today is descended from someone who arrived less than 200 years ago: they’re almost all Settlers. The point here is that when Jews started to immigrate in the 1880’s, they came to a nearly empty land which was bereft of civilization. Only Jerusalem was barely livable because it received a steady income from Christian pilgrims. Other than that, complete dump and wasteland. Minimal agricultural or other economic activity. Visitors were pretty much disgusted with how poor, ignorant and degraded the local population was. And that is why the Turkish authorities – and even the local authorities – welcomed the Zionists: they brought a chance for some economic growth.

Nobody else was going to do it. Not ever. The land lacks any significant natural resources. It isn’t strategically important (too far from the Suez canal to be either used to defend or attack it). If it wasn’t for Jews wanting to be Jewish there, it would still be an insignificant and grossly impoverished backwater of the world. The Turks were probably delighted that someone was willing to come down and spend some money there – anything to build up a bit of economic activity so that governing the area wasn’t just a drain on the Turkish treasury. And so the Jews came. And came. And came some more. Swamps were drained. Roads built. Schools and hospitals. Farming commenced. Now where there had been nothing of value, there was wealth…and the non-Jews looked at this and saw it was good…but also saw that the Jews kept coming. And coming, and coming and coming. Two and two were put together. Eventually, the Jews would be a majority.

Now, when faced with such a thing, you have two choices: just go along with it, or fight it. I do understand why “go along” wasn’t appealing. You’re a Muslim who is living in a Muslim majority land and even though you’re poor, you’re still of the Ruling Class. Muslims hold all official positions. Muslim law dominates. Your cultural and religious ideals are dominant. Here come Outsiders and they’re coming so fast that soon they will outnumber you and start to vote into place themselves. Most people would try to stop that, if they could. But it is important here to note how this fight was conducted: not a straightforward, “we’re Muslims and we’re just going to stay in charge, and if that means we have to kick out the Jews, then we’re going to do it”. Nope. It was The Jewish Conspiracy that is insidiously destroying us! Those Jews! Damned bankers! Cheating us out of what is ours! They didn’t buy the land and start farming, they stole it! Crafty sons of bitches! Kill them all! In other words, not a manly fight of people vs people for ownership, but a cowardly set of lies designed to instigate murder.

That is all this is really about: faced with a Jew sitting in the shade of a tree he planted on his own land, the opponent must cook up a reason for killing him for doing that. The tropes about Jewish Bankers and cabals and so forth is mere cover for “I just want to kill the Jews”. And that is what Tlaib is doing – keeping up the lie to justify murdering Jews. She, personally, might just be stupid – but whatever made her say that, the goal is specific: she wants Jews to be murdered. She and way too many tens of millions around the world: repeating the Blood Libel under varied forms all to get to the same result: murdered Jews…who are malevolent aliens everywhere.

And this goes for everyone who says things like “hey, I’m just asking questions”. No, you are not; you are participating in the Blood Libel. It doesn’t matter what happened in 1948. Or even last week. A Jewish guy pruning his rose bushes in his home didn’t do anything to anyone. But it is said that killing him is justified because of what other Jewish people are alleged to have done. Why? Because its all part of The Global Jewish Conspiracy! In other words, he has to die because liars want to lie. You can’t have an argument against Israel. It is there. It exists. Millions of people live there and have never lived anywhere else. They are not collectively responsible for everything that may or may not have happened in the past. You can’t call for “from the river to the sea” except as a call to murder the innocent…to murder people just because they are Jewish. Remember what Tlaib said in her post: it wasn’t “we must find the Israeli miscreant and punish him”. No. She said “our government continues to send billions to prop up the apartheid system that killed him and kills Palestinians like him every day. Arms Embargo Now.” The dead man wasn’t killed by an Israeli, but by The Jews.

And here’s where I get broken record: we have to punish lies. Tlaib is lying to get people killed. She’s hoping that some moron lunatic out there will take her words at face value and go out and kill a Jew. To Globalize the Intifada. Because in her mind The Jews are all one thing and purely evil. She won’t stop. Not ever. It doesn’t harm her to lie. In fact, she gets praise for it. She’s wealthy and powerful today because of lies. Until she is made poor and powerless by her lies, she’ll keep doing it. As will all the other liars. Just how many people have to die so that we don’t risk the financial and social position of anti-Semites? Just curious. Wondering if anyone can give me a number?