Richard Greene:
"In conversations I've had with young people about their deep hatred of Israel here in Europe I've come up with some startling conclusions.
1. There seems to be a strong consensus that Israel should NOT have attacked back after the October 7 attacks on them. There are two reasons for this:
a) No matter what, children do not deserve to die and if ANY response would kill innocent children, then it is immoral.
b) That attacking back only perpetuates a potentially endless cycle of war.
2. When I ask the obvious follow-up question, "Well, what SHOULD Israel/Netanyahu have done?" the overwhelming, and immediate, answers have been, "I don't know but, definitely, not what they did!"
3. Most do not know that Hamas continued, virtually every day, to attack Israel AFTER October 7, and fired over 30,000 rockets into CIVILIAN areas of Israel. And when they were informed the answer was, "It doesn't matter".
4. The concept of self-defense and fighting to stop FUTURE attacks seems to be impossible for them to grasp. They reflexively default to "Retaliation", and that retaliation by a stronger army is someone inherently unfair, especially if it kills innocent children.
5. The extremely limited pre-frontal cortex operations continue. When informed of the horrific, barbaric actions of Hamas, and even their extremist goals to destroy Israel, and Jews, the almost unanimous and instant response is "Not all Palestinians are Hamas". Or, "The children Israel is killing are not Hamas".
6. The valid statement that what Israel did was NOT a "Genocide" is seen as incredibly technical, semantic, legal and insensitive. And almost useless against the emotional and incessantly repeated claims to the contrary. And, yes, innocent children were killed by Israel so it must, to them, be something as horrible as "genocide", or perhaps even worse.
7. Reminding people about the horrific actions against Muslims, or Christians, in the streets of Iran, in Yemen, in Somalia and so many other places is useless. It truly seems that the funny phrase, "No Jews, No News" is actually a thing. And double standards seem to be an inexorable part of that.
8. There is virtually zero understanding about the dangerous, extremist agenda of Islamists and Jihadists. In fact, at a tennis tournament I spoke with someone who actually works at The UN in Geneva and asked her whether it was true that people in Europe are increasingly uncomfortable with the growing influence, and terrorism from Muslims. She scolded me for even suggesting that any group can be generalized and said, boldly, that there are far more incidents of Right Wing Terrorism in Europe than from Muslims. The facts are that Islamic violent acts account for 41% and Right Wing only 5% in Europe. (Shocking, I know, that someone from The UN could be so clueless : )
Botton line: 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 and the virtue signaling and protests . . . and seeing those on social media - over and over and over again - has reinforced all of the above positions, no matter how inane or insane, to a very high degree.
So, what to do?
1. Educate about the stated goals of Islamism and Jihadism
Virtually no one understands that a SIGNIFICANT percentage of those following Islamic teachings dream of and work towards a "Global Caliphate" where EVERYONE is Muslim.
And virtually no one knows that the destruction of Israel, and the killing of all "infidels" is the stated goal of many Islamic groups, especially the "Twelver Shia" sect which is headquartered in Iran.
2. Go on offense
The Woke Left and Woke Right and most young people around the world are happy to go on offense against Israel . . . and do it with almost every sentence. It's even become cool to say vicious things about an entire country.
So, it is absolutely fair to no longer agree to be the punching bag for the world.
Here are some suggestions . . .
*"Why do you support Genocide?" Hamas and Hezbollah are actually committed, in writing, to the actual genocide of the Jewish people.
*"Why do you support Gender Apartheid against women? You know that virtually every one of Israel's enemies - both entire countries and, of course, Hamas and Hezbollah, treat women VERY differently than men. Second, or even third class citizens or, as some Islamist Clerics say, like "cows".
*Why don't you support Free Speech?
*Why don't you support LGBTQ Rights?
*Why don't you support Democracy?
*Why don't you support Abortion Rights? (And did you know that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where women CAN get abortions legally . . . and that they even provide free abortions to Palestinian women who go there from Gaza?)
*Why is it so important to you that The Muslim Messiah, "The Mahdi" return to Earth to save the Muslim people? (Please do some research on Twelver Shia Islam. THIS is the motivation for Iran to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, The Houthies and other proxies to destroy Israel. Not kidding.
*Why didn't you protest against 40,000 INNOCENT Iranian protesters who were shot - point blank - in the streets of Iran FOR protesting? Do you hate young Iranian men and women?"
facebook.com/richard.greene.…