I have very good news and very bad news. Let’s start with the good: the White House declared it will from now on ignore journalists (or hacks as those in the know call them) who put their preferred pronouns in emails and other messages. As The Donald said during his inaugural speech, there are only two biological sexes—male and female—no matter how much the so-called gender rights activists squeal like stuck pigs.

The hacks were, of course, among the first to express solidarity with the transgender agenda. If The New York Times spent the same amount of time actually reporting the truth as they do worrying about pronouns and inclusivity, we’d all be better off. 

Hacks are the least reliable people one can deal with. They pose as reporters of facts, but in reality they are mostly gossip-mongering left-wingers who trample over the truth when it doesn’t suit their story. There are too many examples of stilted and inaccurate reporting by so-called journalists to list; I’ll just mention their cover-up of Biden’s inability to distinguish between Putin and the White House janitor.

Now for the very bad news: Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, former Arkansas governor, and a decent man, not only favors Israel annexing the West Bank, video from his 2008 presidential campaign has emerged of him saying, “There is no really such thing as a Palestinian.” It was the Bolsheviks who described as “former people” the dispossessed Russian middle- and upper-classes back in 1918. Calling them that made it easier for those nice guys, Lenin and Stalin, to kill millions of them while securing their spots as the Soviets’ top bananas. 

How can a Christian minister utter such dehumanizing words? Has he taken Israeli gold? I doubt it. Has he been brainwashed? Definitely. All Palestinians can say after his appointment by The Donald was, “We are also people.” Not according to those other nice guys, the neocons, who gave us the Iraq War and who see the killing in Palestine and Gaza as no more than the extermination of troublesome pests.

It gets worse when certain sects of American Evangelicals encourage the Israelis to steal more Palestinian lands, and when they use the Bible to justify land theft and war crimes against innocent Palestinians. Not to mention the destruction of Palestinian olive groves, assaults by crazed settlers, and Israel’s denial of Palestinian access to running water and electricity.

Gaza is “a killing field,” according to UN Secretary General António Guterres, as if we didn’t already know. The Palestinians who aren’t shot to death are being starved. According to the secretary general, more than a month has passed without “a drop of aid” getting into Gaza. “No food. No fuel. No medicine,” Guterres told reporters.

What I cannot understand is how the civilized world can stand by and do nothing just because it is Israel doing it to Palestinians. An Israeli air strike on April 9 that killed 29 people, including children, was hardly covered in the media. Let me pose a hypothetical: What would the U.S. Congress and media say if the conditions were reversed, if Arab armies occupied parts of Israel and Arab soldiers treated Israeli civilians the way Palestinians are being treated? What would our neocon friends demand? They’d be screaming to high heaven and would flood the capital with their tears. 

During his recent visit to the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the subject of “voluntary” migration of Palestinians, which is a euphemism for the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. Anyone who has followed Bibi’s career knows that is his dream. 

Meanwhile, everyone knows Palestinians in the West Bank are not exactly living perfect lives. Decent Jewish people in America and elsewhere used to disapprove of the Israeli settlers’ harsh treatment of Palestinians. Until October 2023, that is. After the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis, including mothers and small children, all bets were off. The settlers felt free to grab Palestinian lands and even to kill those who resisted. 

The Israelis had every right to punish the heinous actions of Hamas. But the collateral damage they’ve inflicted on Palestinian civilians as they bombed Gaza is staggering—as is the obvious indifference of our conservative establishment to their suffering.

The Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said that at least 40 percent of Gazans are now interested in migrating to other places. Gee whiz, how strange! I wonder why that is? Oh that’s right: More than 1,500 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire fell apart on March 18, adding to the more than 50,000 Palestinians killed since the start of the Israeli offensive, many of whom were children. Israel’s plan to empty Gaza of Palestinians by either killing them or making their lives hell is now obvious. They are well on their way to becoming a “former people,” but you wouldn’t know that if you only read mainstream conservative news. ◆