Andrew L. Urban.
The new reality show on the world stage is, a bit like the Truman Show, not a reality show at all. It is rather the depiction of a deadly dystopian world where the designated survivors – the Palestinians – seek to destroy the designated devils – the Jews. The competing groups were assigned their respective designations through the black magic of Muslimist Marxism, a toxic potion corroding morality and oozing with the puss of human unkindness.
The unique feature of this new show is that the designated devil does not wish to destroy its deadly enemy, the designated survivor. Huh? This is just one aspect of the conflict that defies reason. Jews do not hunt down Palestinians for no reason. Jews do not seek to eradicate Palestinian Arabs. Indeed, Arabs are a significant sector of Israel’s population and have just voted in Israel’s general elections in the largest ever numbers.
Much of the world has gone irrationally hostile to Israel after the October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian terror group Hamas. It was at that moment that Israel became the designated devil … that is the Marxist marker. Israel was suddenly turned into the oppressor, even while suffering as the victim of the attack, and the attacker was seen as the oppressed victim. In my mind’s eye I see Karl sitting up in his grave, applauding.
Baby Karl Marx (hard to imagine such a creature) came into this world over 200 years ago (May 5, 1818 – the year Mary Shelley published Frankenstein). Marx died at age 65 (March 14, 1883). “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” These words of his are inscribed on his tomb in Highgate Cemetery, London. If you believe that ‘context is truth’, look at the context.
That political imperative was framed in the 19th century, when the socio-political environment in which Karl Marx lived was vastly different. Indeed, the world has changed. Workers are no longer the chained victims of capitalist oppression …. But victims there must be, or Marxism withers. So victimhood is re-introduced, re-defined, expanded.
Enlightened free market capitalism in the west has removed the chains of oppression. (Not so sure about communism…)
Marx aimed to explain the economic impact of capitalist society, where a small group, which he called the bourgeoisie, owned the means of production and used their power to exploit the proletariat, the working class that produced the goods that enriched the capitalists. That notion now seems darkly funny. Marxism is so yesterday… Life for most European people in the 19th century of Karl Marx was awful. At least 80% of the population in England was working class. Hard work, low pay, lack of security and nothing like a fair go … this was the context in which the socialist/communist ideas were forged. No welfare safety net, no health insurance, no childcare subsidy, no air-con, no fridge, no TV, no pension plan, no holidays in Spain…. He lived in the age of Charles Dickens.
Consider the circumstances that prompted a succession of laws on child labour, the Factory Acts, which were passed in the UK in 1833, 15 years before Marx published his Manifesto. Children younger than 9 were no longer allowed to work, those aged 9–16 could work 12 hours per day per the Cotton Mills Act. In 1856 (Marx was 38), the law permitted child labour past age 9, for 60 hours per week, night or day. It wasn’t until 1901 that the permissible child labour age was raised to 12. That’s all part of the context.
But back to the designated devils v the designated survivors. For the mark of the devil to stick, Israel has to be portrayed as a genocidal, apartheid, colonising state. Neither of those descriptors is true. Whereas the Palestinian terror group, Hamas (just as their fellow travellers), proclaim their ambition to destroy the Jews in their own mission statements.
Just so I can’t be accused of bias on that score, here is how Wikipedia reports it: The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement referred to as the Hamas Covenant or Hamas Charter, was issued by Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) on 18 August 1988 and outlines the organization’s founding identity, positions, and aims. In 2017, Hamas unveiled a revised charter, without explicitly revoking the 1988 charter.
The original Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and described its members to be god-fearing Muslims raising the banner of Jihad (armed struggle) in “the face of the oppressors”. The 1988 charter defines the struggle to be against the Jews and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic Palestinian state in all of former Mandatory Palestine, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel. The charter has been criticized for its use of antisemitic language, which some commentators have characterized as incitement to genocide, with the charter explicitly calling for the killing of Jews. Hamas’s 2017 charter removed explicitly antisemitic language and stated Hamas’s struggle is with Zionists, not Jews.
Oh well, that’s alright then… they now claim they just want to kill those Zionists … from the river to the sea. That’s the rallying cry of the oppressed Palestinians; the designated survivors.