17 Comments
User's avatar
Not so young anymore.'s avatar

Amazing. Just disgusted with morons in Oakland which is a failed city

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Dec 3, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Not so young anymore.'s avatar

You know you are awfully stupid. I’m not a right winger and a failed city is not about multiculturalism. Unless you consider failed schools and crime multicultural. That’s quite racist of you.

Expand full comment
Not so young anymore.'s avatar

Of course I’ve been there.

Expand full comment
A Woman Called Paddy's avatar

Maybe that’s because only favoured cultures are allowed.

Expand full comment
Shulamis's avatar

This was a great article.

Expand full comment
X. P. Callahan's avatar

Amen. One more reason I'm happy to have left Oakland.

Expand full comment
Kip🎗️'s avatar

Thank you. Well said.

Expand full comment
Caroline Feig's avatar

Finally. Something honest and to the point. A person with real experiences. Thank you

Expand full comment
Mark L's avatar

Great Writing and gives a more accurate picture of the real issues facing. Arabs in the middle east.

Expand full comment
Muz's avatar
Feb 10Edited

Firstly, I am so sorry to read another account of the horrors that life in the middle east can bring. I hope you will not experience any more of that.

As I find with many people from the middle east, the role that Jew-hate plays in the voices they hear in the west is never acknowledged enough. May I recommend two excellent (if somewhat extensive) books: A lethal Obsession, by Robert S. Wistrich, and Anti-Judaism, by David Nirenberg.

While the Israeli-Arab conflict has been cast by Arab leaders as a fight to regain land, their supporters in the west incorporate the everlasting scapegoat of the western tradition: the Jew. As the current generation of young adults is removed from knowledge of the early to mid 20th century, by two generations, self-loathing culture, and horrible education systems, the same extremes europe of the early 20th century are resurrected. A totalitarian left and an autocratic right. Both need 'boogie man' and there is nobody that is more tried and tested than the Jew.

I found that the muslim jew-hatred is mainly a despise for people that were at the bottom of their societies, living at the mercy of the muslim rulers. It might be because of that, that middle easterners miss the western jew-hatred, as it is more of a conspiracy theory about the all-evil and all-mighty Jews. As the "progressive" ideology chose the arabs (mostly brown people after all) as oppressed, the Jews must be oppressors, and anyway, everyone know they are evil.

Understanding who oppresses people in a place that can barely find on a map is way beyond the knowledge of this crowd, and I submit, beyond their interest; they found a readily available 'boogie man'.

Expand full comment
ymg's avatar

Thanks. I absolutely despise these death porn tourists who try to fill the holes in their lives by feeding on the pain and misery of others while facing zero consequences.

Expand full comment
A Woman Called Paddy's avatar

A voice of truth and sanity. You have just gained yourself a new subscriber.

Expand full comment
Glenn Ingersoll's avatar

Every person has the right not to live in fear. But just saying that -- in the face of bomb and gun and barbed wire and contempt -- is one just being cruel? We each of us has the right to live. But so what?

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Dec 3, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Michael's avatar

Why has Lebanon not pursued peace with Israel, like Egypt and Jordan?

War with Israel has been Lebanon's choice since day one, no?

How many Lebanese Jews were killed in pogroms in 1975? In 1982?

How is Israel the aggressor in Gaza when they were attacked first, from Gaza, on Oct.7?

Expand full comment
B.'s avatar

On the other hand, I had a college friend whose Armenian family had to flee Turkey and lived in Lebanon for a long while, but then had to flee their homes in Beirut because of the Palestinians. They'd take over Christian houses if they found them empty at any given time -- say, when the kids were at school, the father was at work, and the mother stepped out for some, oh, I don't know, butter.

Far too many of today's Palestinians are like far too many of our inner-city Blacks: made lazy and vicious from generations of rampant baby-making and welfare-taking. Where all that international largesse goes in Gaza is abundantly clear: not into education or community-building but into guns and bombs and concrete getaways.

Likewise, have our many trillions since the 1960s helped the majority of Blacks in America?

No, successful Blacks -- and there are many, many more than our democratic socialists would like you to believe -- have done it themselves.

Both Palestinian terrorists and Black street thugs make life for their hardworking kinfolk and neighbors pretty depressing -- and dangerous. And with retribution as one of their virtues, deadly.

What, me snitch? Not on your life. There and here.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Dec 3, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
B.'s avatar

Hard to dispute facts, so retreat into sarcasm and ad hominem attacks. Well done, Nathaniel.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Dec 5, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
A Woman Called Paddy's avatar

Telling the truth isn’t support for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Expand full comment