What Story is Right about Netanyahu?
Understanding the battles the media wages with reality helps inform political choices
Like many of us, I've been focused on the latest chapter in the ever-expanding wars against Israel, kicked off by Iran's vassal, Hamas over 600 days ago.
Israel has now taken the fight to their feudal lord. I’ll tell you what this war means for the narratives disseminated by the mainstream media, academies and the Democratic party, and what you can do about it.
I’ll strive to show how their reliance on narratives helps explain this political moment: Democrats are in disarray while Trump’s Republicanism is impervious to, or perhaps even strengthened by, rallies and endless liberal criticism and dismissal.
But first, war. In part, this is a very big deal because Israel isn't fighting terrorists. For the first time in 52 years they’re combating a nation. It was way back in 1973 when nations like Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon attacked Israel. For no reason.
I think it's important to underscore the dynamics in these Israel vs Everyone Else wars because, oddly, no one seems to mention them. As many immoral acts Israel may or may not commit in the Palestinian territories, the offensive wars by Egypt and Syria back when I was born, or fifty two years later by Iran, are not about West Bank settlements.
They’re not about that Palestinians in Jenin can't vote in Israeli elections.
Or that Jenin presumably has worse sewage systems than a similarly-sized town in Israel, although the only source to report this disparity is from far left wing Israeli NGO. For argument’s sake, we’ll say it’s true.
Either way, the plight of Palestinians isn’t what Iran and even Hamas care about. It never has been.
What they care about is eliminating Israel and, inshallah, taking out America.
They're clear about this with their media statements, and Israel has likewise been clear about not agreeing to its demise. Much like how Ukraine is clear about not caving in to Russia. Media narratives never discuss this crucial fact of the conflicts—that Islamists want to eradicate Israel, while Israel wants to live in freedom within secure borders that will never stretch beyond the Jordan river, the Golan range or the Negev desert. (It’s a land mass the size of New Jersey.)
Here’s an additional fun fact the media doesn’t mention: want to solve the Palestinian territory problem that no leftwing politician can solve? Have a peaceful Middle East where Israel knows, for sure, that it lives alongside neighbors not dedicated to its destruction. Like how Portugal knows, for sure, that not only will Spain never invade, France won’t hire terrorists to hide in Spain and attack, either.
If those conditions are met, then some form of Palestinian sovereignty is no longer a threat to Israel. Problem solved.
The big picture with this current conflict is, we hope, that the Iranian people throw off their regime and create a better nation that's less oppressive and bloodthirsty—for its own people, never mind for places like Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and Yemen.
Since a classically liberal democracy isn't possible in Muslim nations except for Indonesia (which became a democracy only in 1998), it's hard to imagine a good outcome for Iranians.
Why the pessimism? Or is it realism? There are 23 countries with Islam as their state religion. That's 1.5 billion souls. Indonesia is one of these states, they have 284 million people. That means 1.21 billion people in Muslim states live in un-free conditions with no voting, no civil rights, no vegan snacks and no all gender bathrooms, which should be called bathrooms regardless of gender since few people enjoy being all the genders, but I digress.
I've said for a long time that it's hard to imagine Palestinians bucking the trend of illiberal Muslim sovereignty. I don’t think Palestine will become like a Scandinavian country. It seems fair to say Iranians won't be eating Swedish meatballs soon either.
It's odd to me that the passionate denizens of transwokistan USA, who take over campuses, school boards and political parties, don't try to overthrow the Iranian regime themselves. If the regime murders women for not wearing a headscarf correctly, it's ugly to imagine how they treat gay people, ethnic or religious minorities. But no, progressive street fighters and college professors focus on eliminating Israel, which makes them odd bedfellows with the very Islamists dedicated to their elimination.
How do you understand this seeming contradiction, of LGBTQIA+ advocates wanting to destroy Israel which has an amazing track record of LGBTQIA+ rights, vs, say, every Muslim country including Indonesia?
It's easy. First, discount all talk of values and morals. Second, view the LGBTQIA+ progressive movement as an unarmed militia in a zero-sum struggle for dominance.
Insert cautionary note here—I'm not saying all LGBTQIA+ people want to kill Israelis. But I am observing that lesbian Pride organizers, today, in America, excluded Zionists from attending their events this summer. No Jewish ladies allowed—unless they answer your questions correctly.
Also, as far as I can tell, 99% of trans people seek to destroy Israel. They are in coalition with others for sure, like democratic-socialists, but it's a striking observation that if you're a Jewish lesbian who wants to celebrate Pride, you're forbidden, and if you're trans, which is supposedly a mental health or physical condition, you will necessarily have extreme politics which have nothing to do with gender.
Hmmmm... makes me wonder if being trans is mostly make believe.
What if we ask: is trans perhaps a mechanism for white elites to benefit from the same DEI priorities they’ve reserved for black people, by self marginalizing and claiming that—poof!—believing they're trans guarantees their status as an oppressed person? Trans is the new black.
Remember, progressives invert superiority dynamics. The more oppressed you claim to be, the more power you claim over others. Only progressives get to decide the rankings. Jews are out, disabled gay Muslims with autism are in.
This is why Greta Thunberg, who is white and straight, claims autism and several other mental conditions as proof points for her victimhood—and therefore, her power. I know she’s straight because if she were gay, she would claim it as a disadvantage to give her even more rights.
Since, as Greta has undoubtedly learned, you can’t fake being gay, it’s easier to say you’re trans (or in her case, suffering from multiple mental health disorders that are more correctly diagnosed as egomania), since “trans” is a meaningless term outside of the very tiny fraction of humanity suffering from genital defects.
Trans is the express lane for non-gay whites to claim marginalized status. And they’re sure as heck going for it.
OK, Mr Smarty Pants, what about black or Latino trans people? Doesn’t that ruin my whole set up!? I think there’s a different tactic at play. What I’m noticing is that black/brown trans identity confers special preferences that more and more non-trans black people and Latinos reject for themselves.
DEI seems more popular among wealthy whites than working class blacks and browns, but if you’re black or brown trans, then trans is your workaround to retain this privileged DEI status that your own people have been rejecting for years now. It’s your last gasp for power. It also means you can feel safe in your pigeonhole of being a proud Democrat, while more and more of your black or brown family members vote Republican.
This is my conclusion about left wing politics and culture since 10/7, the revelation of Biden’s infirmities and the medicalization of children with harmful anti-Covid and gender interventions. Values and science left the stage a long time ago. These folks are partisans angling for advantage and supremacy. They win, everyone else loses.
Happily, for now, they're losing most elections.
Progressives values are domination, not “social justice,” “diversity” and “human rights.” Those are sheaths, power is the sword.
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Let's get back to media narratives vs. reality. Something that occurred to me with this new Israel-Iran war is our inherited narrative from the media, Democratic politicians, universities and Hollywood—and how they are no longer capable of offering insights into current events.
Worse, they seem unconcerned with reality.
Yet, they persist. They push a dramatic tale of beleaguered rebels waging a heroic battle against evil imperial overlords. It's Star Wars. It's the Avengers. It's not real, but it's potent and has a great narrative hook.
They apply this framework to almost any struggle:
Trans vs. males and females
Gay vs. straight
The made up idea of "people of color" vs. whites—which, if you uppercase it, means you're racist, but, for some reason, Black is mandatory
Women vs. men
Palestinian terrorists vs. Israeli senior-citizen peace activists
Or my current favorite, the Democratic defenders of democracy vs. the fascist, pre-Nazi, definitely racist and patriarchal Donald Trump—and the 77 million cult-worshippers who voted for him. Another word for them is “neighbors” and “family members.”
This is all so distant from reality and empiricism as to be laughable, if it wasn't so destructive for our country.
The challenges of our time are lack of housing, decaying infrastructure, violence and unaffordability. These very important issues don’t even get a subplot during storytime.
They also raise the question: why, in the face of dwindling electoral strength and fewer and fewer readers and NPR subscribers, is it important for the storytellers to tell themselves these stories?
To tell the ending first, it’s because they have to tell these stories. It’s all they have left. But now it’s story time:
They tell stories like: skin-color, gender and sexuality-based diversity are primary goals that all private and public institutions must conform to under the full weight of the US government.
Likewise, economic, religious and perspective-based diversity must be ignored. Or better yet, unmentioned.
A two-state solution for Israel and Palestine is a stable, desired and necessary geopolitical outcome.
For men and women to be equal, they must behave, think and act identically to each other. Ideally, they should dress alike too. Any diversion by males from these patterns must be derided with insults like "toxic" and “patriarchy.” Males must be reminded they have the disqualifying gender for diversity. The only hope is if they're gay, then their deficiencies are somewhat mitigated.
We must especially handicap boys, ideally with medication and discipline, otherwise, in this dramatic story, not only will all girls lose, but all women will be subjugated to men forever. It will be Games of Thrones in one generation.
While this is certainly true in the Arab Muslim world, it seems like a quaint observation in America, where girls outpace boys in almost every qualitative measure.
The other story is that, since all people are created equal (a religious-political belief originating in ancient Judaism), and since men and women must behave and look exactly the same way, we must also celebrate all minority ethnicities, non-binarians and those with mental illness. Why? Because they’re different. Being different is good. Unless you’re talking about gender, then being different is bad.
If you think this is confusing and contradictory, you’re in the right place.
More germane to this essay, the other great story we’re told is that Israel is a white supremacist settler-colonial country perpetuating the same white supremacist settler-colonial crimes that America did during slavery and against Native Americans, except you can actually do something about it! No, silly, you don’t need a time machine. You can fight American slavery and every injustice of the Western world right now, today!
Eliminate Israel. Problem solved.
This explains the “Queers for Palestine” head scratcher, or why black writers like Ta-Nehesi Coates spent a week in Israel to write a popularly-received diatribe about Jim Crow in Ramallah, while never asking what happened to the segregated Jewish populations in Baghdad or, say, Berlin. Or what will happen to Jews in America if people like him ascend to political office.
Zohran Mamdani, the most anti-Jewish candidate in many lifetimes, may become New York’s next mayor. New York has the largest population of Jews outside of Israel.
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I’ll wrap up with a less extreme version of these Tall Tales. The center-left's Israel narrative goes like this: it’s mostly OK for Israel to defend itself after 10/7. War is an ugly fact of life.
But not anymore! At some point, we don’t know when, Netanyahu went too far. He, I mean, the IDF, is wantonly killing a criminally disproportionate amount of civilians.
What informs this are Hamas statistics of Palestinian civilian deaths. The media quotes these stats. They never say they're from Hamas, we’re told they’re from the Gaza Health Ministry.
Apparently this is one man with a Twitter account. Is he even in Gaza?
Where is the GHM’s office? Do they have clinics? Where do their numbers come from? How can they report them while missiles are being fired? Are there really no natural deaths in Gaza since 10/8 because 100% of them are attributed to Israel?
How come no mainstream journalist asks these questions?
This is the same news media that ignored Biden's dementia so they can keep him in office, but whoops, Biden announced his condition to the world all by himself.
Why do they do this? I think it’s because they need these kind of stories much more than they need to uphold supposed values like objective journalism.
These stories keep them in power. It’s impossible to discard these stories because an objective tete-a-tete with reality threatens their cultural and economic dominance. So let’s gather ‘round the campfire, keep telling tales and hope no one notices there’s no more wood left.
That’s the answer to my question: why do these storytellers feel the need to tell these stories to themselves, especially when it seems that fewer and fewer people are listening to them? They do it because they have to. Truth is not the issue, it’s about power, faith and fantasy, to crib the title of Michael Oren’s book.
I like focusing on the narrow issue of Israel because it's a great fulcrum for understanding the many problems with the left wing—and why they're more and more unpopular across the world.
Another way of saying this is Jews are canaries in the coal mine of Western Civilization. Not because we’re smart, it’s because we’re both minorities and white. That gives us a rare perspective.
The storytellers keep it up because they have to, or at least, that’s what they think. Meanwhile, more people vote for Republicans. And more people use podcasts, substacks and social media instead of radio, print and cable news.
My argument is that these things are closely-related. People turn to better voices so they can better understand reality. This, in turn, clarifies how to vote. That’s why Trump has risen in the age of media turnover.
It’s also because, after so many decades of hearing about the vital relevance of the Civil Rights Movement, our country has declined economically and physically. Perhaps even spiritually.
But the only way you can understand this negative trajectory is by going elsewhere for the news, since “the news” tells you a story about noble heroes of color and their trans allies fighting scary white male monsters, both here and in Israel. This distraction keeps the storytellers in power while you drift further and further into the abyss of wage stagnation, criminality, bad food, harmful pharmaceuticals and unaffordability.
Why does the media do this? Because it enriches their faction in society. How can I prove this? I’ll ask you to do it for me. Point out me how many blue collar workers are journalists or academics.
The center left says Israel is bloodthirsty and must be stopped, either by restricting arms sales or by restricting Trump from attacking Iran. But since they don’t hate all Jews, they select Benjamin Netanyahu to blame for the wanton loss of life as reported by a terrorist with a Twitter account that’s amplified by the largest media organizations in the world.
Bibi’s the culprit! Get rid of him. Problem solved.
First, let’s ask the obvious question: what would the center-left critique be if another politician took his place and he or she also wanted to defend Israel by removing Hamas from power? Which is what any Israeli politician must do to protect his or her role, since Israelis won’t vote for someone who doesn’t protect them.
They also miss the next obvious observation. Benjamin Netanyahu is the greatest liberator of Arabs, and soon perhaps Persians, in world history.
Millions upon millions of Arab Muslims in Lebanon and Syria now have a shot for freedom, as ahistoric it is for Arab Muslims to be free, due to Netanyahu. His leadership may soon expand (bitter, to be sure) freedoms to Gaza, the West Bank and like I said, Iran. That’s 130 million people.
Suleiman the Magnificent, the 16th century Ottoman sultan, was one of Islam’s greatest political leaders and a significant reformer. He ruled over 25 million souls.
This clear truth—that millions of Arabs owe their freedoms to Israel’s military—can’t be reflected by left wing narratives, or even centrist narratives. They’ve told us all a different story, and since that story can’t change if they’re to remain in power, they’re sticking to it.
If even center leftists can't observe that more Arabs are free because of Netanyahu, then their stories of Netanyahu’s endless perfidy shouldn’t be taken seriously. They shouldn’t be disseminated by every mainstream news outlet in the English-speaking world. Now consider how this relates to their descriptions of Trump.
Thankfully, your average American see through all this. That’s why he ignores the press and sticks in his earbuds to listen to a podcast.
Let’s take it one step further. While he’s listening to the podcast, he can now also shift his political loyalties from a party that tells him he can only be on the side of history if they follow their instructions, and towards himself, his family, his workplace, his place of worship and his country.
That’s freedom.