Hamas supporters aggressively attacked and interrupted Christmas-related activities across the West. The question is why?
During the days leading up to and through Christmas, news websites reported many disturbances of traditional activities by Hamas supporters. Ornaments on public trees were torn off and replaced with PLO flags, public gatherings were disturbed with screaming and statements that “Christmas is canceled,” and even a telethon to raise money for children in medical need was shamelessly interrupted by protesters. Traditionally heavy holiday air travel was disrupted by protesters preventing access to O'Hare, LAX and JFK airports. The question is why did pro-Hamas protesters ruin the holiday of people who could ostensibly be their allies?
Looking at pro-Hamas protests from the streets of London to Harvard Yard, one can identify (though they often hide behind masks and keffiyehs) many people marching and screaming who do not look particularly Middle Eastern. This fact is no surprise as many leftist groups have openly stated their support for Hamas’ actions on 10/7 and have eagerly participated in marches in which Western symbols such as the Cenotaph and the White House fence were defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti. The point here is that Palestinians in the US and more broadly Muslims in the West are more than willing to march with “Trans for Palestine” and Antifa, so there is no purity test to join in the genocidal calls for the destruction of Israel and an intifada against Jews everywhere.
With the above in mind, one might think that the Friends of Hamas would have wanted to appeal to Christians to join them against the state of Israel and the Jews. Many people in the West are no great Jew-lovers and may be persuaded by anti-Israel arguments, even if they are based on falsehoods. So it would seem that the pro-Hamas protesters could have used the public gatherings and large crowds to appeal to Christians (not many Jews will be at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony) to join them in fighting Israel and demanding a stop to IDF activities. But instead, they enraged the crowds and those at home by making transit impossible or desecrating manger scenes or marching through get-togethers of people who wished only to enjoy and celebrate the holiday. Their behavior seems contradictory: on the one hand they will take a lefty white guy who wants the US to give back all of its lands to the Indians but will not work to bring into the fold a non-political white guy who only came for the eggnog. This behavior should set off alarm bells throughout the West.
Generally during revolutions, strange bedfellows join together to get rid of the ruling body. A typical example is Iran, where small business owners joined with the mullahs in the fight to get the Shah removed. And the next step is also standard: after the Shah or czar or king is removed, the strongest of the opposition groups (Bolsheviks, mullahs...) works to destroy its former partners so as to keep power to itself. Thus gays and the Muslim who would throw them off of a building can hold opposite sides of a “From the River to the Sea….” banner today because in their mind the common enemies are the supposed colonial power Israel (intersectionality at work!) and the Jews who seem too successful. The gays think that this friendship is forever. The Muslims know that when the time comes and they don’t need their new friends, they will get rid of them as they currently do in many Muslim countries: an elevator ride to street level without the elevator.
The fact that Muslims and non-religious left-leaning Westerners disrupted Christmas gatherings and related activities should be a cause for worry. Immediately after 10/7, this cabal attacked Israel and blamed her for the brutal and animalistic murder, rape, beheading, and torture of several thousand civilians who were killed, injured or taken into captivity.
There was an article about the longest-serving rabbi in the IDF who was called back into duty on 10/7. He said that the bodies he had to identify were intentionally mutilated in manners he had never seen in fifty years of service. The anti-Israel orgies quickly devolved into antisemitic attacks on Jews in general; demanding an “intifada revolution,” the Hamas wannabes stated their hope to rid the world of the Jews, as Hitler had wished before them. But their attack on Christmas and obvious Christian symbols is a further level of anti-Western agitation.
For the Muslim, it is a statement that Shariah law will prevail, and Muslims will conquer the Western lands, the same ones that took many of them in and gave them a life about which they could not have dreamt in their former backwards countries. For the leftists, their actions and interruptions are their way of stating that they want no more religion in their countries’ national lives. Their attacks are an expression of their godless worldview in which religion is banished and only secular values and institutions will reign. We thus once again see strange partners finding a common enemy, if for different reasons. One might have thought that the supposedly religious Muslims would respect another religion’s activities, while he might hope that lefties would leave alone activities that have been traditional in Western countries for centuries. But in their white-hot hatred of Jews, Israel, and the West, they could not stop themselves from attacking Christmas trees and ruining public activities. Instead of making new allies in their fight against Jews and Israel, they have infuriated not only those directly disrupted but also millions more who find their activities offensive and beyond the pale.
The pro-Hamas crowd is telegraphing its goals. Western countries would be wise to change their immigration policies and actively send back anyone who violated his or her visa or agitated for genocide or harm to the host country. Freedom of speech is not freedom to commit national suicide. The time has come for the West and universities to flex their own muscles to put their anti-Western enemies in their place. It started with Israel, moved to the Jews and now is focused on the West. Enough. Show some national pride and put an end to their macabre demonstrations of Western hatred hiding behind uniquely Western free speech laws. If the Christian West is so evil, then those who hate their host countries can find plenty of available flights to Muslim and other non-Western countries.