Two kinds of poison

Two kinds of poison bother me: CO2 in the air worldwide, and the anti-Semitism in the soil, traditionally the European-Russian soil but now steadily spreading to the Middle East and North Africa. The two poisons cause equal desperation, and I often don't know what to focus on. Around Dutch Liberation-day at May 4 of this year, confronted for the umpteenth time with the fathomless and inky abysses of the extermination camps, I wondered why actually I’m so concerned about the climate and a possible physical end of humanity. After all, wasn't humanity already morally bankrupt eighty years ago? Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly supported the occupation of the highway A12 and other disruptive actions by Extinction Rebellion (XR). Protesting against climate-threatening poison is always a good thing anyway, I thought.

At the moment the other poison concerns me more, mainly because of the speed and ease with which it is released. Our Dutch and European soil must be saturated to the brim with it, otherwise the eagerness with which anti-Israeli aggression flared up shortly after Hamas’ sadistic mass murder of Israeli civilians cannot be explained. As early as October 9, it was reported in one of the TV-shows that the mass murder was serious, but “that the Jews did ask for it to some extent.” On October 11, before the devastating Israeli bombings, the Palestinian flag was projected on the Rotterdam Eurotower by a department of XR. The obvious phase of understanding or compassion for Jewish Dutch people was virtually skipped, and (according to the Dutch paper NRC) “the switch was made immediately to a particularly aggressive form of solidarity with the Palestinians – often resulting in unadulterated anti-Semitism.” Katya Tolstoy, the outgoing National Theologian, says: “Because of the war in Gaza I feel a wave of anti-Semitism here, I know that from the Soviet Union.”

I knew that poison is in our soil – how could it be otherwise after hundreds of years of initially Christian-inspired and then secular anti-Semitic ideas? That is sunken socio-cultural heritage, so to speak. But that it is so flammable, in such large concentrations and so close to the surface, that scares me. And I also find it shocking that Extinction Rebellion is not the hygienic organization I thought it to be. Instead of fighting the anti-Semitic poison as it fights CO2, XR subsidizes its spread. Now that it appears that XR is just as blind to the social poison as the oil industry is to the greenhouse gas, the movement has become redundant for me. I think I know where my attention will be focused for the time being: on the anti-Semitic poison, that is, on the question of how the mechanism works by which one group can be blamed for literally everything, including the greenhouse gas.

By the way, I am of the opinion that the A12 should remain occupied. And the West Bank should not.

For another account of unconcerned anti-Semitism, see also Ironic. 

If you want to see or give comments: click on Two kinds of poison and scroll down.