Iranian-American Demands Death to Israel

The above photo is taken from an article by Maryam Alaniz entitled Trump Escalates Attack on Pro-Palestine Movement with Plans to Deport Students and Workers, which appears on the Left Voice website. In the article she makes a number of claims that are manifestly not true. In fact, they are so not true that I can't help but think she's a liar.

The lede paragraph (links omitted here and in subsequent quotes):

Just a week after his inauguration, Donald Trump has already put into motion an attack against the historic movement of workers, students, and community members of universities across the country who protested the genocide in Gaza and defended fundamental democratic rights, such as free speech and the right to protest.

There are at least two lies in this one paragraph. First is that there is a "genocide" in Gaza. We'll get back to that. Second, she claims that fundamental rights such as "free speech and the right to protest" are violated. The picture contradicts her words.

A prominent sign advertises a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment." An encampment is not free speech--it is trespassing on private property. I assume (from both the context and the picture) that the setting for this encampment was Columbia University. Camping out on a campus lawn while yelling insults at passers-by is not exercising a "right to protest."

Ms. Alaniz must know this. Therefore she is simply lying in her first paragraph.

Then there is the "genocide" charge. Hamas claims that 46,000 Gazans have been killed in the war. This number is almost certainly exaggerated, but it's the only number we've got so let's run with it. Gaza had a pre-war population of 2.3 million, which means the casualty rate is about 2%. That's terrible--that 2% of Gazans have been killed in a war. All wars are tragic. But it is definitely not "genocide." That would require a death rate of at least 80% or 90%, along with an intention by the Israelis to kill as many people as possible. That was obviously not the Israeli's intention.

Again, Ms. Alaniz must know this. She is definitely lying about the "genocide."

Ms. Alaniz also writes,

Trump is worried that the broad sectors of U.S. society that began to question the lie that  “anti-zionism can be equated with anti-semitism” will rise up again.

I'll grant that there is a small distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. But it's so small that it doesn't really matter--at least not in Israel. Approximately 10 million people live in Israel, of which 7.2 million are Jewish. Almost all of those Jews (if only by virtue of where the live) are "Zionists." With perhaps a few exceptions, nearly 100% of the Jewish population in Israel should therefore be exiled or slaughtered.

Frankly, in this context there is no significant distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Perhaps others can cut Ms. Alaniz a little slack here, but personally I think she's lying. I think she's an antisemite. Obviously, as seen in the photo below, some of Ms. Alaniz's best friends are avowed anti-Semites.

Rafael Hasid, Israeli owner of Miriam Restaurant in Brooklyn. He left up Jan. 25 antisemitic graffiti so that people can “see that things like that happen.” Tehran-backed Hamas war to destroy Israel has sparked rise in anti-Jewish violence worldwide, a deadly threat to all workers.

(Photo & Caption from The Militant; Photo Courtesy Miriam Restaurant)

Ms. Alaniz tells us here that she is "the daughter of immigrants from Iran" So she apparently brings that whole Death to Israel vibe with her, which she apparently inherited from her friends the ayatollahs. Actually, I'm not sure if she sympathizes with Iran's clerics. Perhaps she'd acknowledge that life for every day Iranians was better under the Shah? Somehow I doubt that--though for all his sins the Shah looks like a saint in comparison.

I assume that (like me) Ms. Alaniz was born in the US of immigrant parents. That makes both her and me American citizens--regardless of where our parents came from. This means she can't be deported--she has exactly the same rights that I and all other American citizens have. This is the way it should be. Like Ms. Alaniz, I strongly object to Mr. Trump's efforts to deny birthright citizenship. Presumably she'd grant the same rights to children of immigrants born in Germany and oppose the proposal of some in the German AfD to deport "foreigners" born in Germany. Birthright citizenship seems like a principle widely accepted in most Western countries.

But somehow, in Ms Alaniz's world view it doesn't apply to Israel. While 80% of Israel's Jews were born in Israel (and likely, also, most of their parents), they are not to be credited with citizenship in their own country. They are, instead, "occupiers" and are to be either exiled or murdered. How can this be interpreted as anything other than antisemitism?

Then Ms. Alaniz tells us she's "pro-Palestinian," yet she still supports Hamas--or at least all of Hamas' slogans (which is the same thing). Hamas conducted the massacre on October 7th, killing 1200 Jews and taking a couple hundred hostages. This, they claimed, was to "end the occupation."

Of course Israel was going to see October 7th as an existential threat to their country and respond accordingly. The all-out war was as predictable as the day is long--no serious person in Gaza could have drawn any other conclusion. Can Ms. Alaniz tell us--with a straight face--that the people who carried out the Oct. 7th raid were acting in the best interest of Palestinians? Of course they weren't! Their sole motivation was a death-cult allegiance to some death-cult form of Islam. 

There is no way that Oct. 7th and the resulting war was "pro-Palestinian!" No--all it was is pro-Hamas--a murderous, fascist group that needs to be militarily and politically eliminated from the face of the earth.

The goal for those of us who are genuinely pro-Palestinian should be for the residents of Gaza to have a thriving economy that provides it's residents with a modern-world income, and offers Palestinians an opportunity for political expression that does NOT require the extermination of Israel's Jews. Clearly, by this definition, neither Hamas nor Ms. Alaniz can in any way be described as "pro-Palestinian."

They're anti-Semites, pure and simple.

Further Reading:

• Sam Karlin Makes a Mess of the Middle East
• Malik Miah Defends Harvard
• Left Voice and the Intifada