@iowahawkblog “A good rule of thumb: …if your initial impulse is to demand the whole incident be "contextualized," you might in fact not be supporting the Good Guys.”

In World War II the Gestapo— contrary to Hollywood movies— was able to ruthlessly crack most of the French Resistance cells. The brother of future Canadian cabinet minister J.W. Pickersgill was compromised before his boots ever hit French soil. Betrayed by French collaborators he was picked up by the Gestapo within 18 hours, sent to the Buchenwald prison camp and eventually murdered with other Canadian and Allied prisoners.

He was not an exception in being betrayed. Capture and death awaited almost all in the Resistance. Except for the Communist cells. (Future French president Francois Mitterrand was among their number.) Their fanatical loyalty to the communist cause made them virtually impossible to turn. No amount of pain or psychological torture could break them down. Their minds were closed to outside input. This fanatical omerta was the badge of honour among their peers.

Remember this today when you see BLM, Palestinian or academic Marxists marching down your streets demanding that Jewish blood flow. Attempts to talk sense to these fanatics are futile. They take pride in being obtuse. The more you try to educate them the deeper they go within their belief system.

These are people “whose brains have been broken by an excess of education,” says author/ comedian Konstantin Kisin, “Who believe our history is evil. That we do not deserve to be great. That we must be punished for the sins of the past… To them, our past is abominable, and our future is one of managed decline.”

Still, people try. Here’s American conservative Ben Shapiro at the Oxford Union trying to talk sense to a pro-Palestine zealot. Shapiro scores many gotchas on the young woman who baldly states, among other things, that Britain wasn’t bombing civilian targets in WW II. (Shapiro replies that Dresden would like a word with her.)

It’s all good fun if the idea is to argue facts. But this is not about facts. It’s about reprising the victimization narratives this woman has absorbed since childhood. The clever gotchas’ will reinforce her rehearsed oppression script. Like the Resistance fighters she will return to her friends as a hero for absorbing the scorn of the “fascist” she debated.

Because the object of this was not edification but political theatre for left-leaning media to disseminate. Think we’re being too tough on media? Guess again. At the end of a recent pro-Israel column in the Yale University newspaper editors at @yaledailynews affixed a “correction,” saying claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men are “unsubstantiated.” Tell your facts to shut up, Lucy Brown.

Okay, the universities have been certifiable for decades. The organs of the most prestigious schools are controlled and manipulated by people so far to the left of Bernie Sanders that he looks like Ted Cruz. They spin the media the way Tom Brady spins a football.

But the rest of society is cool, right? Uh, no. In Vancouver, this Palestinian apologist describes the unspeakable crimes committed against Israelis as an "amazing, brilliant offensive.” Forget that Hamas is labelled a terrorist organization by the Canadian government. Where PMJT threw all the powers of the state at Truckers Convoy, this cold-blooded insurrectionist gets a shrug from her government and police.

Now here are scenes from that noted hotbed of far-left agitation, Calgary. From behind a wall of Palestinian flags (they have no economy but they have a flag) people decry the Jews and hold up signs saying Auschwitz.

These provocative scenes are being replicated in every major Canadian city and across the U.S. People who have been your neighbours are suddenly going all whaddabout’ over the brutal murders in Israel on October 7. Crowds chant “Jews to the ovens” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free’.

In the wreckage of their governments politicians entrusted with enforcing order can only disengage and point to other shiny objects. Ask them what they feel about Hamas official Gazi Hamad vowing that his people will continue the Oct. 7 style attacks until “Israel is annhilated”. Should be an easy moral question, no?

Sorry. Here’s Foreign Affairs minister Melanie Joly trying to suck and blow at the same time. She mumbles platitudes about can’t we all just get along— and then asks for a humanitarian truce to save Ghazi Hamad and his butchers from retribution for their behaviour. Can’t have Islamaphobia, after all.

If you wonder how the street marchers are emboldened, look no further. (BTW: many of those now screaming death to Jews were also the most strident voices last week or last month on climate, vaccines and a range of other hot takes that the government would rather went away. “If it’s Tuesday it must be Palestine” is the slogan of these rent-a-radicals.)

Writer/ blogger Christopher Ruffo knows the game. “We've created an entire layer of unproductive, ideological jobs that cater to the pathological, the hysterical, the vengeful, and the anti-social. They accumulate power by making demands and inventing new, invisible "oppressions." But they're all optional—we can shut them down.”

In his ADC speech Kisin pointed out, “The history of our civilization was not made by people who got everything right. It was made by people who made mistakes too,”. But those now being banned by the clever set “knew something that we’ve forgotten. All death is certain, we don’t get to choose when we die, we only get to choose how we live before we die.”

Kisin urges the West to fight back. The fanatics will not go voluntarily. They will block their ears. You can only wall them off and pray they don’t get over the fence too often. And re-introduce accountability as one of the central tents of a civilized society.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

Contextualizing History: The Death of Your Grandfather's Liberalism