Poster Wars

For three days last week I put up posters of people who were murdered or kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. The first day I did this I didn’t have my wits about me and simply stapled them to wooden poles. By the time I had finished my route and was heading back home, I saw that the first one had already been torn down. So I dropped by the hardware store and bought a roll of packing tape and the next day fastened the posters with three bands on each poster — but that, too, wasn’t good enough to protect them. Upon inspecting my route later on, I found that the parts of the posters that had not been taped down had likewise been torn away. Two days ago, I fastened the entire surface of each poster with packing tape, and since then they have all remained intact — at least for now. 

I don’t think it is just the packing tape that is keeping my posters up. In many places, there has been serious backlash against those ripping these posters down, so it can no longer be done with impunity. People caught tearing down posters are being severely chastised in public, and their defiant “F*** you!” rejoinders cannot be impressing any but the most depraved of souls. Moreover, incidents of tearing down posters are being recorded and posted on social media, and some employers are threatening termination to those who engage in the act.

It is fruitless to speculate about the motivation of individual vandals. They are either crazed or stupid or both. What is more important is focusing on the effect of putting the posters up, and that is easy to state: They are bringing the Hamas atrocities close to home and countering the Palestinian narrative. 

In some places, the posters depict kidnapped Israeli children, and it’s obvious why that would touch ordinary people. But mine are of a different sort. The set that I’ve been putting up consists of six people, five of whom have been murdered and one of whom has been kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Four of the five who were murdered were young men and women in their 20s; the fifth was a woman in her 30s; the one kidnapped is a 74-year-old grandmother. And they are all Canadians who just happened to be in southern Israel during the Hamas pogrom.

Stalin once observed that one death is a tragedy whereas 1 million are a mere statistic. Putting up these posters counters the narrative that the victims of the Hamas atrocities are mere statistics. The importance of this action should not be underestimated. Ever since the Six-Day War in 1967, and even despite the trauma of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, it has been clear to the world that Israel’s enemies cannot defeat it on the battlefield. Nevertheless, ever since, Israel has soundly been defeated in the war of words. The Palestinians have skillfully adopted and exploited the role of underdog, which not only has immeasurably harmed Israel’s stature in the world but has also thereby seriously impeded its ability to act effectively against its enemies. 

The backlash against Hamas can also be seen in the public’s reaction to the organized demonstrations in favor of the terrorist organization. Over the years, I have seen sympathetic reactions by bystanders to parading demonstrators. I have seen passersby cheering them on, raising high the iconic revolutionary fist and shouting, “Right on!” This is not happening as this rabble parades its hate. Passersby are silent, and, from what I have seen, the police are determined to keep the demonstrators from rioting. At least in North America, there will be no acquiescence or tacit public support for rioting as there was for the work of Antifa and BLM. The person that can allow him or herself to be persuaded that George Floyd was murdered because he was black is not going to be willing to condone the wanton and gleeful beheading of babies just because they are Jewish. (RELATED: Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd)

But it is still worth noting who in the West are Hamas supporters. Many years ago, while watching a gay Pride parade in San Francisco, I saw that the banner of one of the contingents displaying the words: “Jewish Dykes on Bikes Pro-PLO.” I must admit that, at the time, I found this sentiment rather amusing. Now, not so much. Of all the masks coming off, perhaps most revealing are those of the radical feminists. An Israeli morgue worker has reported that the raping and killing of women in the Hamas pogrom was so violent that it broke their pelvis bones. Video has appeared that shows a large patch of blood on a female victim’s trousers. Shockingly, some radical feminists have been trying to explain away this brutality. On her most recent blog, Janice Fiamengo reports that some feminist comments have suggested that this blood might have been due to a faulty tampon or heavy menstrual cycle. The same feminists who have endlessly magnified and demonized the most innocent and unharmful gestures of men toward women in the West have always swept Muslim brutality to their own women under the rug. Wife beating, female mutilation, honor killing have been as nothing to them. And now some of these same feminists are suggesting that the Hamas brutality toward non-Muslim women has been staged.

Nothing could be more outrageous. After the dust settles, the trauma will linger with those who have suffered these vicious assaults for the rest of their lives, no matter how hard they try to carry on. Most people in the West are incapable of imagining what these pogroms are like. This one lasted only one day before the terrorists were pursued and driven out. In Europe, the pogroms often lasted longer because there was no one and nothing to stop them. Most of the damage was done the first day, but the Cossacks sometimes returned the next to perform triumphal acts. After the pogroms in Europe, some of the girls who were raped committed suicide; others ended up in mental hospitals. (READ MORE: This Evil Will Not Stop With the Jews)

The pro-Hamas demonstrations are big and angry and noisy and evidently meant to intimidate people. But having displayed their black hearts in public, the demonstrators are now beginning to look pathetic. More than 80 percent of Americans support Israel. The vast majority cannot stomach the Hamas atrocities, and the terrorists’ unheard-of brutality seems to have awakened them from their self-imposed slumber. 

Having overplayed its own hand in the war of words by broadcasting images of its wanton brutality, Hamas has not only freed Israel’s hand; it has forced it. At long last, Israel is now able to state and execute the only war aim that makes sense in the face of such a foe. And that aim is not, as in the past, to appease or quiet Hamas. It is to completely obliterate it. 

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