"Drinking the Kool-Aid" - is a metaphor commonly used in the United States and Canada that refers to a person or group's unquestioning belief, argument, or philosophy without critical examination. (Emphasis added by writer) The phrase typically carries a negative connotation when applied to an individual or group. The basis of the term is a reference to the November 1978 Rev. Jim Jones Jonestown Massacre, where members of the Peoples Temple were said to have committed suicide by drinking Flavor Aid (not actually Kool-Aid,) drink laced with cyanide. --- Wikipedia
This phrase has been part of the American lexicon since that fateful night when 900+ people met their end in the rain forests of Guyana. More and more it is applicable to not only the majority of the American people, but to people around the world in general. The Internet was supposed to give us greater access to information, but what has actually happen is the segregation of believers into different areas of the Internet, where they read only the information that agrees with their ever increasing biases. This is the nature of man, congregating with like-minded individuals whenever possible. Most of the time this propensity to gather in flocks does nothing but give people solace their belief system is correct, or why would so many others share in them. However, throughout history, we have seen that it sometimes feeds a maniacal, xenophobic, hatred of all other competing realities. Is this view that other realities exists leaning toward the existential? Maybe. But it must also be said, that personal reality in most cases does not equal Truth. While reality might be fluid from one individual or group to another, truth is not relative. In the search for truth, critical examination of facts is essential. This lack of critical examination, in reference to the Middle East, is at the core of why most people have no real understanding of the issues that lie at the foundation of the problem. Where the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict is concerned, most people have and are continuing to drink the Kool-Aid.
After my first stint in the Gaza Strip, I found myself teaching in Egypt. I had my first real exposure to the Arab view (non-Palestinian) of the conflict. Although every Egyptian seems to have an opinion on what is going on in Palestine, it is crazy just how truly misinformed they are satisfied to be. They can't even get the basics right. All around Egypt, you see pictures of the Dome of the Rock. When you ask them what is in the picture, the majority will tell you that it's the Al Aqsa Mosque, not actually truly understanding the difference between the two (the dome being a shrine, and the mosque being.....well, a mosque). They are of the opinion, that if you are not an Arab, then you just can't understand what's going on. Doesn't matter if you live in the same environs, it's an Arab thing (you know, like saying the N-word is a Black thing). It doesn't matter that I've studied it longer than they have. It doesn't matter that I've looked at more sources than they have. And it certainly doesn't matter that as an outsider, I'm looking at it from an unbiased space. But their bias leads to stereotyping of the most obscene nature. One of my our middle school students wrote a spoken word poem where she postulated that the systematic rape of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers was a matter of Israeli policy. This was something that she'd heard in the Arab media, so of course, it must be true. (FAIL). However, this extremely biased propaganda not only extends throughout the Arab world, but incredibly gullible liberals in the West buy into these faux atrocity stories like they were being delivered to the media by Mother Teresa. What ever is printed in the Arab press about the dread Zionist Entity must be true. Because of this craziness, you get the stupidity of the flotillas, individuals who have seriously drunk the Kool-Aid. These people have listened the propaganda, swallowed it whole and joined in a quixotic errand to supply the people of Gaza with food, drugs, and other needed supplies. You know, because there is no food in Gaza; the shelves in the stores are empty, the humanitarian crisis is happening as the people starve. Pity the Palestinians, who the dread Israeli Occupation Forces (the term used in most Arab press) are starving, poor people. NEWSFLASH - THE SHELVES OF THE STORES ARE NOT EMPTY! Is it hard to get fresh things that are produced outside of Gaza? Yes. Is it hard for them to get materials for building? Yes. Are the a lot of people in Gaza living in poverty because of the amazingly high unemployment rate and does this lead to people not having enough food in their homes? Yes. But it is not because there is no food in Gaza. How long would it take to find those truths out if you truly wanted? Probably about ten (10) minutes on your home computer. There are plenty of things that the Israeli government does as policy that are borderline heinous in how they deal with the Palestinians. Any of these things could be enough of a reason to side with the Palestinians if a person had a mind to do so; but failing to critically assess why you chose one side over another in this convoluted mess has to be the height of idiocy. But for the most part, when you talk to people that chosen to side with the Palestinians, the issues they site are usually ones that do not bare scrutiny. They are drinking the Kool-Aid.
Do you think at this point that I'm letting the Israelis and their Kool-Aid drinking benefactors off the hook? No, dear readers, the Israelis and their collaborators get no such pass. The problem with the Israelis is that they lose the propaganda war even before it starts. They like to portray their country as the little country against the world, ignoring the fact that they are militarily and economically one of the most powerful countries in the Middle East. They are Goliath to the Palestinians' David. However, like the young lady who talked about the raping of Palestinian women, you'll find Israelis who will likewise talk about the greater plot (of ALL Arabs) to murder Israeli children up in their beds. I had a conversation with one of my Israeli friends recently, where I tried to explain why I am so reticent to tar the entire Palestinian nation with the blame, whenever some idiot or group of idiots commits an atrocity. Being African-American (Black, Negroid, of the Colored Persuasion, whatever the hell the word is this month), I seriously know what it feels like to know that every crime committed by some idiot who just happens to share the genetic coding that creates a similar pigmentation, will be linked to all the rest of us that share that coding. I'm sure that there is not an African American, that hasn't heard about a crime in the community, who didn't silently pray, "Please don't let this idiot be Black." It is the ultimate creation of the other by a society. Not to say that we have beaten this idiocy in the United States (see Trayvon Martin), but when it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Israelis have created the ultimate other. Thus, ALL Palestinians are suspect by the nature of their inclusion in the group of Arabs who find themselves inside this part of what was the British Mandate of Palestine. Don't get me wrong. Palestinians do not help their cause when they try to defend these idiots when they commit what ANY reasonable people would consider an atrocity, but it is absolutely necessary for people NOT to be termed guilty by association. But if you listen to those supporters of Israel who call ANY criticism of the Jewish state anti-Semitic-ism, they have completely drunk the Kool-Aid. Nations by their very nature are amoral entities. They will do heinous things if it is believed that it is in the good of the survival of the nations. If you support these things happening, that’s well and good. But don't sugar coat evil acts in an effort to make them moral, regardless of the fact of why they are being committed.
What has been created is competing vortexes of victim-hood. As both sides struggle to sell themselves as the greater victim, they have created dual tornadoes, into which are sucked their Kool-Aid drinking cohorts. The distortion of the truth, because of the lies promulgated by both sides, comes the dominate world views of their willing non-Middle Eastern acolytes. The destruction caused by these tornadoes is immeasurable, as it feeds the false realities of the idiot populations of not only the Middle East but the rest of the world combined. But it's a simple question that to this point, no one has successfully been able to answer for me. Why is it that the conflict between at best 12,000,000 people (that's about 0.18% of the world's population people) has created about 90% of the enmity? Secondary question, why do we even care?
But the advice of the day is simple. STOP DRINKING THE KOOL-AID!!! Start actually making decisions based on the truth and not on the biased realities of the so-called peoples involved. Someone that backs his brother right or wrong can not claim to be moral. A person that supports his country right or wrong cannot truly claim to love it. A person willing to allow inhumanity to others, just because they are the other, cannot claim to be human. THINK for yourself, ACT with integrity and CREATE A REALITY based on the truth. Only then will you have an opinion worthy of defense.
Stop the madness!
This post first appeared on Gaza Diaries: A Western View From The Inside, please read the originial post: here
