The Ugly Face of the Radicalized Left

By MacIverNews -
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As Dan O’Donnell writes, America’s radical progressive movement has finally dropped its mask as a massive group of left-wing organizations in Wisconsin openly celebrate the mass slaughter of innocent people.

Oct. 18, 2023
Perspective by Dan O’Donnell

Easily the most disheartening aftereffect of Hamas’ systematic slaughter of more than 1,300 innocent Israelis is that it has been met with outright jubilation in what were once the most radical corners of American liberalism but increasingly feel like its mainstream.

On October 8th, just hours after the massacre, a “broad coalition of Wisconsin organizations that work for peace and justice formed” in order to, as the group put it in a press release on Monday, “to respond to the false and one-sided narratives regarding Israel’s war on Gaza and the continued oppression of the indigenous Palestinian population.”

Wait, “Israel’s war?” “Continued oppression?”  Did the 260 rave-goers deploy a couple of tanks into Gaza before they were slaughtered?  Were the grandmas and grandpas ripped from their beds and executed in the streets secretly running a repressive government?  Who exactly were the raped preteens and murdered babies oppressing?

According to the 28 left-wing groups calling themselves the Wisconsin Based Coalition for Justice in Palestine, these innocents actually had it coming, as they were citizens of “one of the most extreme supremacist Israeli governments in history” and therefore complicit in the “decades of provocation” that led to their own deaths.

Sound crazy and more than a tad Nazi-ish?  It should.  These 27 groups represent the absolute worst of Wisconsin, the dregs of a society that until only very, very recently would have universally condemned their utter ghoulishness.

On October 11th, four days after the terror attack, representatives from a number of the groups rallied in Milwaukee to celebrate it.  And yes, “celebrate” is the correct term.

“As most of you are aware, a few days ago Palestinian resistance fighters launched a surprise attack against their oppressors—the violent apartheid Israeli regime that has been displacing and murdering them for more than 75 years,” said the event’s emcee, who identified herself only as Sarah from the Milwaukee Antiwar Committee and then led the gathered crowd in a chant of “When people are occupied, resistance is justified!”

In her warped and, frankly, evil worldview, the cowardly murder of innocents is noble resistance—a perfectly justifiable response to either real or imagined oppression.  She is sadly hardly alone in this belief.

“Let us clear up the ahistorical narrative of senseless violence begetting violence,” said another speaker at the event, a masked woman from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.  “Years of apartheid violence from an unrelenting Israeli state begets resistance from Palestinians that is justified!”

As the crowd cheered, she continued.

“And that is why the Alliance and so many people around the world stand in full solidarity with the Palestinian resistance!”

People of good conscience don’t, actually.  They tend to abhor “resistance” when it involves burning elderly people alive.  Not these groups, however.  They loved every bloody second of it.

Sima, a member of the American Muslims for Palestine who also declined to give her last name before addressing the crowd, assured them that the “root cause” of the slaughter was “the occupation of Palestine.”  Without the existence of Israel, there would be peace (“from the river to the sea,” as the crowd chanted at several points during the speeches).

“The people of Palestine have been living under apartheid and settler colonialism,” she added. “Settler colonialism and everyday violence against Palestinians has been on the rise.  The murder of Palestinians has been happening over the last 75 years.  Gaza has been besieged for the last 17 years.  These human beings have been trapped in an open-air prison.”

Then, as a means of justifying the slaughter of their supposed captors (you know, the preteen girls raped and then paraded through the streets of Gaza before being held as human shields), Sima asked the crowd, “Is this a way a human being should live?”

The speakers’ feeble attempts at logical thought would have been hilarious if they weren’t so depressing and, well, terrifying.  There really are far more American citizens who think like this than many rational people are comfortable admitting, and they are more emboldened to spill their bile in public than ever before (though it should be noted that none of them had enough courage in their convictions to fully identify themselves).

This is the wretched face of radicalized American progressivism, and as ugly as it is, it is a good thing that it has finally taken off its mask.

Here are the 28 groups in the Wisconsin-Based Coalition for Justice in Palestine, which are celebrating, justifying, and blaming Israel for Hamas’ slaughter of 1,300 innocent Israelis:

Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition
Jewish Voice for Peace–Milwaukee
Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance
Islamic Society of Milwaukee
Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice
Milwaukee Anti-war Committee
American Muslims for Palestine
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Students for Democratic Society
Adalah Justice Group
Syrian American Medical Society-Milwaukee
Peace Action Wisconsin
Students for Justice in Palestine at UWM
Students for Justice in Palestine at Marquette University
Students for Justice in Palestine at UW-Madison
Arab and Muslim Women’s Research and Resource Institute
Muslim American Society
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Friends of Palestine WI
Milwaukee Islamic Dawa Center
Al-Quran Foundation
Catholics for Peace and Justice
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Black Youth Project 100
We Are Many – United Against Hate
MKE4Palestine
United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
Sunseekers Milwaukee
Madison-Rafah City Project and Palestine Partners