Israel/Palestine Discourse Model Status: Failure
DISCOURSE MODEL 1
INITIATE DIALOGUE SEQUENCE [ENTER]
Protesters: Let’s stage mass protests to attract media attention and get our message out to the world.
Media: Yes, we will cover your protests.
[Covers the protests.]
Media: Okay, we have a lot of nakedly pro-Hamas and PFLP propaganda at these protests, let’s get a camera on those. People are chanting “resistance by any means necessary,” and routinely using the term “Flood” to describe their actions, a knowing reference to the Al Aqsa Flood, i.e., the October 7 atrocities.
Protesters: No! We want coverage, but not like that. You are the problem.
Media: Um…
Lefty/liberal supporters of the protests (LLSP): Why is the media not talking about the reasons for the protests and the pure motives of so many of those involved? Why the obsessive focus on the explicitly stated support for Hamas and the PFLP? Most protesters don’t agree with that.
Protest organizers and official groups: We not only agree with that, we have also marched with signs that say “Houthis are Heroes.” The Houthis’ official banner contains the words “Death to the Jews” in Arabic but we are cool with those guys.
Other protesters & much of LLSP: [Silence]
Media: It’s our job to note that there has been explicit support for Hamas, the PFLP and the Houthi movement seen at these protests, unlike anything before in the States [in the UK it’s old hat — DA]. In fact, we should probably dig deeper and explore why that is, although few of us actually will.
Protesters: No, you cannot explore that, it is racist and you are lying and you hate the left. You are manufacturing consent.
Media: The placards are right over there. Our microphones are picking up all the chants.
Vast majority of Jews: They have a point, you know…
Everyone: Did the Jews say something? Are they at it again?
Protesters: Why aren’t you covering the war?
Media: We are covering the war. That’s another department. They’re off, uh, covering the war.
Protesters: But can’t you see they’re linked and we are acting in solidarity and creating world revolution? That’s what this is all about.
Media: Okay, can you elaborate? The mic is all yours.
Protesters: [barely coherent Chomsky-speak, plus lecture on “decolonial praxis” guaranteed to baffle/alienate most consumers of news, AND a request for humanitarian aid … for themselves.]
Media: That’s very interesting but it’s not our job to present your highly debatable viewpoint as the truth, while ignoring or downplaying all this other stuff you’ve got going on.
Police: [Completely unwarranted body tackles of middle-aged women, generalized shoving and beating, escalation, incompetence, costing communities a fortune in brutality settlements and chipping away at the foundation of our freedoms.]
MAGA: YES!! Now’s our chance! Everybody hit them with your cars! Open fire at will! Cultural Marxism Critical Race Theory We Told You So!!!
Bari Weiss’s The Free Press: MAGA has a point. We really hate to have to say it.
Too many liberal Jews: We should cite Bari Weiss’s The Free Press and look for answers there.
LLSP: These protests are a referendum on police brutality and the chipping away at the foundation of our freedoms. Everything else is a diversion. If you criticize the protest movement, you are implicitly supporting MAGA and where they’re trying to take this country. And now we know what you would have been doing during Vietnam and the Civil Rights Era. It is definitely not trolling and emotional blackmail to say so, it’s a fact. Because that is how history works. We graft our current views onto conflicts from the past and find that it presents a highly accurate picture of the moral choices we would have made if we had been alive. This is useful, try it sometime.
Protesters: Thank you, we have done this, to assure ourselves that we are on the right side not only of this history, but past histories as well. Otherwise who knows what people would say about us. You are starting to see that the struggles are linked! Also, we hate Genocide Joe Biden. We will strive to see that he is not reelected, and we are not in the least concerned with the aftermath.
LLSP: Hmm, you might want to think that through…
Protesters: Aha!! You support genocide! You are working with powerful interests to manufacture our consent!
LLSP: Of course you would say that, bless your hearts! You are growing, doing the right thing, history is on your side, we love you and support your vision. We will take inventory and work to dismantle our own anti-Palestinian bias.
Media: [countless stories until November about Joe Biden’s age and acuity, interviews with “swing voters” at the local Bojangles.]
PAUSE DIALOGUE SEQUENCE [ENTER]
DISCOURSE MODEL 1 STATUS: FAILURE
REBOOT/SELF-DESTRUCT (CHOOSE ONE)
