Do they want it to happen here?
Ed Palm  Columnist  In honor of the movie theaters of old, Im offering a double feature and a short subject/preview. In the words of the Bard, Something wicked this way comes! If Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Michael Flynn arent wicked, theyll do until wicked comes along. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently defamed Democrats by drawing two iniquitous parallels to the policies and politics of the Third Reich. I wont dignify her remarks by repeating them here. They have been widely reported on and deservedly denounced as overblown and ridiculous. Greene is either woefully ignorant of history or not above trying to incite those who are. I am aware she has recently apologized, but only after mounting public and congressional pressure to do so. She retains her following, and she continues to speak for other Republican demagogues seeking to undermine our faith in democracy. They would have us believe only a strong autocratic leader can save America from socialism. And we all know the leader they have in mind. Matt Gaetz, of course, has echoed the same theme, but in more explicit terms. At the first stop of the America First Tour he and Greene have organized, Gaetz told the crowd the GOP is no longer the party of Republicans like John McCain  the reasonable moderates, that is. It is Donald Trumps party! he thundered. Even worse, in Florida on May 27, he told the crowd they have an obligation to use their Second Amendment, claiming we have it not for recreation or sport, but for rebellion against the government. He tried to walk back that exhortation the next day, claiming he was not fomenting violence. Cue Curly of Three Stooges fame to deliver his comic verbal tic: Certainly!  The danger is that the things Greene and Gaetz are saying have the ring of truth to those with only a superficial knowledge of history. In the words of the poet, A little knowledge is a dangerous thing  especially when it serves to mobilize the force of ignorance. And now there is Michael Flynn  a retired lieutenant general and a Trump-pardoned former national security advisor  who on May 30 told a crowd of QAnon believers in Dallas that there is no reason why the kind of military coup that seized control in Myanmar cant happen here, adding, It should happen here. He too has tried to walk back that off-the-cuff remark. But he did say it. So much for honoring the oath he once took to support and defend the Constitution. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a novel about the election of a fascist American president with the ironic title It Cant Happen Here. Yes, it can happen here. Witness what happened on January 6. We need to make sure nothing like that happens here ever again. This is the Great Republic, not a banana republic. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a sequel  There must be some mistake. I thought Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner had solved the Middle East peace problem. After all, he got a number of Middle East states to normalize relations with Israel. The problem is he dismissed the plight of the Palestinians out of hand. It is a myth, Kushner wrote, that the Arab-Israeli conflict could be solved only after Israel and the Palestinians resolved their differences. Kushner clearly subscribes to what New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg terms the deadly fiction that the Palestinians were so abject and defeated that Israel could simply ignore their demands. As recent events have shown, thanks to Iranian backing, the Palestinians can hardly be ignored. One of my readers is clearly out of sympathy with the Palestinian people. He reminded me they voted for Hamas. Hence, to his mind, they got what they voted for. He is hardly alone in holding that view. He further reminded me that the media once focused squarely on the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism and that the words Palestinian and terrorist used to be considered virtually synonymous. In all fairness, this reader recognizes that not all Palestinians are terrorists. He just believes the liberal media is now unfairly biased against Israel. It bothers him that liberals like me acknowledge Israels right to defend itself, but go on to criticize them for doing so. I certainly dont support Hamas or condone its tactics, but I can understand why the Palestinian people would throw in their lot with them. From time immemorial, terrorism is a tactic the weak have employed against the strong who oppress them. In addition to reviewing Mike Nicosias letter of May 21, readers might google what Amnesty International has to say about the plight of Palestinians under the Israeli occupation. To say theyre treated like second-class citizens would be an understatement. There is, I realize, a kind of reader who would dismiss Amnesty International as a liberal organization. But the truth is the truth whether it comes from a liberal or a conservative. The so-called liberal media outlets are not now backing the terrorists; they are recognizing that there are two sides to this issue and that, to a large extent, Israel has been reaping what it has sown. The Palestinians are people too  people who were there before the modern state of Israel was created, people with human rights. As some wag long ago said, in Vietnam, we made more VC than we killed, and we killed them by the hundreds. Im sure Israel recently made more hardcore Hamas supporters than they displaced or killed, and I doubt they killed many actual Hamas fighters and leaders. Thats why I believe a ground offensive would have been the better option. Even in war, there are rules, and ignoring them can prove to be self-defeating. Finally, that same reader is worried that liberal sentiment will result in our denying military aid to Israel. That wont happen, but maybe we should start tying our aid to a more enlightened and humane approach to the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation. Short subject/preview  Im hoping to devote a future column to the furor over teaching Critical Race Theory. Suffice it to say for now that the people adamantly opposed to it remind me of one of the common complaints among those discomfited by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. Our colored  as they used to say in polite circles back then  "were perfectly happy until these outside agitators got to them. No, they were not happy. Contact Ed Palm at majorpalm@gmail.com.