Imagine a person who maliciously gives someone bad advice. Sounds nasty,but can you prove anything? He can claim he just had a mistaken perspective! Because you can’t prove motive, this guy has ‘plausible deniability.’ He can claim innocence, and people may believe him. He may even believe himself.
When the Torah forbids “placing a stumbling block before the blind (i.e. misguiding someone)”, it adds “and fear your G-d.” Remember that G-d knows your thoughts and motives, even if no one else does. You’re not going to escape responsibility.
Humans are fallible, so humanly-generated social constructs will be somewhat flawed. Communism - who’s Manifesto frames all of history as a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed - was introduced as an antidote to the flaws of Imperialism. Communist advocacy for the downtrodden became very popular, especially among the young and idealistic.
Then Communism showed its brutal flaws. Stalin alone is estimated to have killed over 7 million people. I lived in the USSR for almost six months in 1989-1990, and was heartbroken for the hundreds of millions of poor souls trapped in that socialist misery.
The socialists had quickly become fascists, even as they vigorously clung to the implausible facade that they were actually protecting the vulnerable. They knew that - to some - ‘protecting the underdog’ is the shield of all shields, and can even turn an empirically false position into ‘plausible deniability.’
How can anyone, unless they were indoctrinated with Jew-hatred from birth, see Hamas in a positive light after October 7? How can otherwise intelligent American students wave the flags of genocidal rapists? It seems that Stalin's heirs, Marxist adults still pursuing the destruction of Western and Jewish civilization, are cynically puppeteering this vicious University campaign of [im]plausible deniability.
It all begins with maneuvering and distorting facts so that Israel is seen as the oppressor and Palestinians as the oppressed.
Years ago, I had a conversation with the president of a major university, during which he noted his responsibility to protect Muslim students from Islamophobia. I vigorously agreed. Then, after a moment’s silence, I added, “I hope you also work to protect Jewish students from anti-semitisim.” I was alarmed when he responded: “The Jewish students are well organized and can take care of themselves.”
Had Jews - persecuted for millennia and 0.2% of the globe’s population - morphed from a vulnerable minority to privileged members of the establishment? Did 16 million Jews with a single Jewish country have the upper hand over 2 billion Muslims in 49 Muslim countries (seven of which are obscenely wealthy)? Dystopia.
Yet, deeply-bigoted forces - too many of them University professors - are identifying Israel, and Jews, as the ‘Imperialist’ enemy of the vulnerable. They’re weaving radical Islam, a fascist, brutality theology, into the tapestry of the oppressed. Dystopia.
Some naive students are buying it. And some university administrators are apparently afraid to declare that this emperor has no clothes.
So Jew-hatred, proudly displayed, continues in the Quad. And in city streets.
We’re living in dystopian, precarious times. Declare the implausibility. Make yourself heard.
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