We See You

By David M. Friend

First, the good news.

Maureen Galindo, that Jew-hating Democrat congressional candidate in Texas, lost her runoff election this past week.

Galindo’s the antisemite who said she wanted to send Zionists to an ICE detention center in her district outside San Antonio and castrate them.

I still wonder about the eight thousand Texans who ended up voting for her in the runoff, but the bottom line is, she won’t be going to Congress. She can now crawl back into her hole.

Now, for the bad news.

A dear friend, former colleague, fellow journalist and ardent supporter of Israel, recently spent some time in Britain. He visited London and Kent and wrote me about the antisemitism and anti-Israelism he experienced.

He says the Brits used to be hesitant to criticize Israel due to an awareness of their own ignorance of Israeli history, since they gave up their mandate over Palestine in 1948.

Now, he says, they feel perfectly comfortable trashing Israel based on the last two years, even when their opinions are based on demonstrable lies, promoted by news outlets like the BBC.

Here’s one example.

He spoke with a 69-year old, highly educated man who is an extremely successful producer of reality shows on British TV. My friend has known him for decades.

Apparently, he’s swallowed the Israel-Palestinian genocide lie as if he was eating a plate of bangers and mash.

“I just can’t go along with what Israel is doing to its neighbors and really the entire region” he said. “This isn’t about retaliation for October 7th. It’s gone way past that. We are witnessing a campaign to wipe out an entire people. It’s disgusting.”

My friend also met a painter, originally from Poland, who has lived in Britain for the past two decades. He said, Israel “creates its own problems.”

In a casual conversation with a 30-something fast food restaurant manager, the lies promulgated by the anti-Israel forces were stunningly apparent.

That guy said:

“Israel has been trying to annihilate these people for the last two years. Two million Palestinians are now kicked off their own land. There WAS mass starvation, no matter what Israel says. It is clearly a campaign of genocide.”

Talk about a bushel full of b.s.!

But when a 30-something fast food restaurant manager says he believes Israel engages in ethnic cleansing, mass starvation and genocide, and no matter what Israel says won’t convince him otherwise, then you know what that tells me? It tells me the old blood libels, the old antisemitic tropes, are alive and well. They were in hibernation for a time, maybe for several decades, but not any longer.

They have been resurrected and legitimized by the media, by politicians, by podcasters and by way-woke establishments like Brooklyn’s Park Slope food Co-Op that banned Israeli food products from its shelves this past week.

But wait, there’s more.

A Facebook post about Israel-hate by journalist and author Richard Greene this past week, blew up on social media. More than 600,000 views and 2,000 comments.

Greene posted conversations he’s had with young people in the United States and in Europe about their deep dislike of Israel.

He found a “strong consensus that Israel should not have attacked back after October 7.” He found that it didn’t matter that Hamas continued its attacks on Israeli civilians after October 7.

And here’s the really scary conclusion from Greene’s post:

“Attempting to even plant seeds of a different perspective with young Free Palestine/Israel is evil believers, is about as effective as trying to reason with hard-core MAGA Trump supporters. It’s a cult.”

They believe the Jewish state is a genocidal, baby-killing entity, “no matter what Israel says.”

What Greene reported and what my friend heard in Britain, is being echoed in Australia, France, Spain, the United States and pretty much in every country.

Israel may have won stunning victories on the battlefield, but it has clearly lost the war for the minds and hearts of the “X” generation.

But it’s not just about the youth under the influence of social media

My former CNBC colleague Joe Kernen, during an on-air discussion, nailed it this past week when he said, “anti-Zionism gives the left an out to be antisemitic. Everyone can be antisemitic by hanging this ridiculous label that it’s anti-Zionist.”

Bravo, Joe. I never thought I would consider you a righteous gentile, but I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

To those haters in Britain, Brooklyn and beyond, to the woke left and to the woke right, to the politicians who sell out Israel and their Jewish sisters and brothers to save their political skins, I say, we know you. We know you from the expulsions, from the pogroms and from the Holocaust. We know you and we see you. And we know not let you out of our sight.