On June 8, 2010, newspapers around the world headlined the latest triumph of Politically Correct language.
The Israeli government had apologized for circulating a video parodying the lyrics of Michael Jackson’s hit, “We Are the World.” Its purpose: To mock terrorists from the Gaza flotilla smuggling arms into Gaza.
In early June, 2010, six Hamas ships set out in defiance of the Israel’s blockade of Gaza. One of those ships, the Mavi Marmara, suffered nine casualties during a subsequent Israeli raid on the flotilla.
In the video, Israelis dressed up as terrorists offer their own take on the incident through song.
Among its lyrics:
We’ll make the world
Abandon reason.
We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa.
We are peaceful travelers
We’re waving our own knives.
The truth will never find its way to your TV.
Click here: The Flotilla Choir Presents We Con The World – YouTube
The Israeli Government Press Office distributed footage of the music video to foreign journalists on June 4, but then sent an apology to reporters just hours later, insisting it had been an accident.
“The contents of the video in no way represent the official policy of either the Government Press Office or of the State of Israel,” Israel’s Government Press Office later told CNN.
But the retraction did not stop “We Con the World” from becoming an Internet hit, getting over three million views in less than a week
By issuing such an apology the Israeli government forfeited a vital weapon in its ongoing struggle for not simply sovereignty but survival: Ridicule.
Every great tyrant has feared the laughter of his enemies. For that reason, the Roman Emperor Augustus banished the satirical poet, Ovid, from Rome and the KGB worked overtime to suppress anti-Communist jokes.
It’s clear that Israeli bureaucrats—like American ones—have caught the Political Correctness disease, where even the most criminally depraved are off-limits as targets for satire.
During most of the eight-year Presidency of Bill Clinton, the State Department applied the “rogue state” moniker to nations like Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
In a 1994 lecture, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defined a rogue state as one that actively tried to undermine the international system.
But in 2000, the State Department declared that it would no longer refer to such nations as “rogues.” Instead, they would now be referred to as “states of concern.”
“Rogue,” said a State Department spokesman, was “inflammatory,” and might hamper the efforts of the United States to reach agreements with its sworn enemies.
In short, it’s become Politically Incorrect to refer to even our sworn enemies as enemies.
As Steven Emerson, president of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) puts it: “If you can’t name your enemy, how can you defeat him?”
During World War 11, GIs—and their commanders—routinely referred to German soldiers as “Krauts.” Japanese soldiers were universally referred to as “Japs.”
Throughout the Vietnam war, North Vietnamese troops were called “gooks,” “dinks” and “Charlie.” During the 1991 Gulf War, American soldiers called Iraqi soldiers “ragheads.”
Admittedly, that’s not the sort of language to use in polite company.
But there is nothing polite about war, and it’s unrealistic to expect those whose lives could be snuffed out at any moment to be Politically Correct in talking about deadly enemies.
The United States has been at war with Islamic nations since September 11, 2001. But terms such as “jihadist,” “jihadi” and “mujahedeen” are now officially forbidden by the Pentagon.
So is “Islamofascism,” a term often used to describe Islamic aggression against other countries—especially non-Muslim ones.
Similarly, the American government now seeks to impose the same Political Correctness restrictions on how to refer to daily invasions of its sovereign borders.
“Illegal alien” is taboo—although totally accurate. An “alien” is defined as “a foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where they are living.”
And a foreigner who violates another country’s immigration laws is in that country illegally.
“Undocumented immigrant” is the new fashionable term to be used by all federal agents charged with enforcing Anmerica’s immigration laws.
Liberals feel that this sounds nicer, and won’t offend our “little brown brothers” south of the Rio Grande.
“Undocumented immigrant” makes it seem as though the mass violations of America’s national border are no big deal. You might even think the illegal alien simply lost his legal papers while sneaking across the border.
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, laid out the guidelines for effective propaganda. In his notorious book, The Prince, he wrote:
…Men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are….
Apparently, many people in government are now convinced: If you don’t admit there is a problem, the problem doesn’t exist.
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WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN AND NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI ADVISE ISRAEL
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2023 at 1:13 amThomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, the great Southern general of the American Civil War (1861-1865) had a simple philosophy of war.
To end Union efforts to crush the newly-minted Confederate States of America, he urged Southerners to take no prisoners. Instead, they should kill every Union soldier they could lay hands on.
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
Jackson’s views on war were shared by not only his fellow Southerners but, ironically, by one of the fiercest enemies of the Confederacy: William Tecumseh Sherman.
Sherman was the Union general who in 1864 cut a swath of destruction through the South while “marching through Georgia.”
He is credited—or reviled—as the father of “total war,” thus making the suffering of civilians an integral part of any conflict. Sherman realized that civilian support played a vital role in a nation’s war-making capacity.
Destroy that support, he believed, and the conflict would end.
In March, 1985, just as the Civil War was close to its end, a staff officer told Sherman about Jackson’s opinion on not taking prisoners.
Asked for his reaction, Sherman said: “Perhaps he was right. It seems cruel, but if there were no quarter given, most men would keep out of war. Rebellions would be few and short.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
Contrast that with the way Israel has long responded to hundreds of unprovoked rocket attacks by the Hamas terrorist group.
Beginning in July 8, 2014, the Israeli Air Force bombarded more than 900 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
Israel claimed it was trying to avoid civilian casualties in the crowded urban landscape. Members of the Israeli military began telephoning Palestinian residents whose homes had been targeted, warning them to leave.
One resident, Sawsan Kawarea, claimed she received a call from “David,” who said he was with the Israeli military.
“He asked for me by name. He said: ‘You have women and children in the house. Get out. You have five minutes before the rockets come,’” Kawarea said in an interview.
She ran outside with her children. A small rocket hit the house soon afterward. Five minutes later, a larger missile hit, destroying the house.
For years, the Israeli military has delivered such warnings via cellphone calls and small “warning rockets”—usually sent from drones.
The strategy has a nickname: “Roof knocking.”
It’s Israel’s response to longtime criticism for “collateral damage.” That is: Civilians killed while its military takes action in the crowded Palestinian territories.
The policy allows Israel to say: We did our best to avoid killing civilians.
But in waging Politically Correct warfare to head off criticism, Israel has made a dangerous mistake.
Niccolo Machiavelli, the 15th century Florentine statesmen, carefully studied both war and politics.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his major work, The Discourses, he wrote candidly about how to preserve liberties within a republic. In waging war, he advised:
…Often individual men, and sometimes a whole city, will act so culpably against the state that as an example to others and for his own security the prince has no other remedy but to destroy it entirely. Honor consists in being able, and knowing when and how, to chastise evil-doers.
And a prince who fails to punish them, so that they shall not be able to do any more harm, will be regarded as either ignorant or cowardly.
Meanwhile, on the Gaza Strip: After a week of Israeli bombing more than 900 Hamas targets, Palestinian medical officials claimed that 186 people had been killed and at least 1,390 wounded.
That worked out to about 26 people killed every day.
Contrast those figures with the casualties suffered by a single German city during World War 11 air raids during eight days and seven nights.
Beginning on July 24, 1943, the U.S. Air Force and the British Royal Air Force over several days killed 42,600 civilians and wounded 37,000 in Hamburg and practically destroyed the entire city.
The bombing ignited a firestorm that incinerated more than eight square miles, baking alive many of those who sought safety in cellars and bomb shelters.
Hamburg, Germany, after Allied bombing raids
For the vaunted Israeli Air Force to have killed so few of its enemies after dropping so many bombs testified to a massive waste of ordinance.
Clearly, the only people making good on these raids were the arms makers supplying the bombs.
If the United States and Great Britain had managed to kill only 26 Germans a day in World War II, America, Britain and Nazi Germany would still be at war today.
No wonder Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel.
Machiavelli knew—and often warned—that while it was useful to avoid hatred, it was fatal to be despised. And he also warned that humility toward insolent enemies will only encourage their hatred and contempt for you.
An Aesop’s fable well sums up the lesson Israel should have learned long ago: A snake was stepped on by so many people he prayed to Zeus for help. And Zeus said: “If you’d bitten the first person who stepped on you, the second would have thought twice about it.”
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