The Destruction Of Gaza SHOULD Be Radicalizing People

Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST

(Photo: TGP screenshot)

If the so-called “moderate” position of your nation’s political status quo is to accept, normalize, support and defend the sort of evil that is being inflicted upon the people of Gaza, then you should want to get as far away from that “moderate” position as possible.

What’s happening in Gaza should radicalize you. It absolutely should.

Right now, even as its own criminality hits fever pitch, the western political-media class is fretting with increasing shrillness about young people getting “radicalized” and turned against their government by the spread of information and ideas at campus demonstrations and on TikTok. 

But young people should be radicalizing right now. Everyone should.

When you see Israel rejecting a Hamas ceasefire and beginning its long-threatened assault on Rafah (the last so-called “safe zone” in Gaza), that should radicalize you.

When you see US senators assist this horrifying onslaught by publicly threateningthe International Criminal Court if they dare to indict Israeli officials for war crimes, that should radicalize you.

When you see Israel shutting down Al Jazeera to quash news reporting about its criminality immediately before launching this mass atrocity, that should radicalize you.

When you see The New York Times receiving a Pulitzer Prize for its scandalously discredited, notoriously biased and widely–mocked Gaza coverage, that should radicalize you.

When you see the US president publicly supporting and encouraging violent police crackdowns against protesters opposing his genocidal actions in Gaza, that should radicalize you.

If the so-called “moderate” position of your nation’s political status quo is to accept, normalize, support and defend the sort of evil that is being inflicted upon the people of Gaza, then you should want to get as far away from that “moderate” position as possible, and you should seek the complete annihilation of that political status quo.

This obvious point is being aggressively attacked with rapidly intensifying frenzy by the empire and its lackeys.

After police violently shut down anti-genocide campus demonstrations in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done… I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the City of New York,” as though preventing the spread of radical political opinions is something a mayor is elected to do in the United States.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry ominously told the pressthat there is “some organization” who is “radicalizing our students,” and that the New York police force intends to “find out who that is.” Again, the implication being that it is the job of the police to control the spread of unauthorized political opinions.

In an article with the incredibly propagandistic headline “Anti-Israel protests infiltrated by ‘outside agitators’ who radicalize students, sow violence,” The Washington Times presented these unevidenced assertions from New York City officials as though they are established fact instead of highly convenient fiction.

In a talk at the McCain Institute on Friday, Senator Mitt Romney told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Congress supports banning TikTok because it shares information that turns people’s opinions against Israel, saying such information has a “very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”

A new report from The Intercept reveals that congressmen Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer called on the FBI to investigate campus protesters at a “centrist” political group called No Labels, suggesting there these demonstrations have a nefarious support system which the federal police should look into.

The Wall Street Journal has been losing its mind over the campus protests, posting articles with headlines like “Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests” and “Rules for Campus Radicals, 2024 — A website reveals the planning and strategy behind the current college mayhem” which suggest that there is something sinister and unacceptable about these demonstrations receiving support from “longtime activists and left-wing groups.”

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went full Alex Jones on his show last week, telling his audience that these university protests have been happening because Qatar has “poured hundreds of millions of dollars into American universities to have a radicalizing effect on Middle Eastern studies.”

Empire managers and propagandists have been pushing the narrative that foreign governments are behind this new protest movement to radicalize young people against Washington and Israel, though as we discussed recently they humorously can’t yet manage to agree on which foreign government that is.

The imperial spinmeisters have been churning out these talking points about radicalization and nefarious support because that’s the narrative bludgeon they plan on using to stomp out the burgeoning antiwar movement the empire has created with its genocidal atrocities in Gaza. If they can establish a narrative that it is the government’s job to shut down political dissent and stop the spread of unauthorized political opinions, then they can justify doing pretty much anything to stop this movement in its tracks.

All to shut down something that absolutely should be happening. Young people should be cultivating radical political positions in response to an active genocide that’s supported by their government. An antiwar movement should be forming against the imperial murder machine as its murderousness gets more and more insane. People should be aggressively rejecting the political status quo that has allowed this nightmare to be unleashed upon humanity.

Everyone should be turning against the US-centralized empire right now. Don’t let the imperial manipulators dupe our society into believing this turn is anything but a correct and appropriate response to what the empire is doing.

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This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 

 NOTE : ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS.