On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization

by Douglas Murray

The poster seemed innocuous. “Thank you for masking” was the headline. Beneath it the poster stated: “Disability oppression is intertwined with Israel’s settler-colonial project in Palestine.” You may have thought, like me, when you read that, Huh? But the explanation continued. It claimed that Israeli officials had refused to distribute Covid vaccines in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which is a flat-out lie. The Israeli government handed Covid vaccine distribution over to the Palestinian Authority, partly because it was unclear how many Palestinians would even take a vaccine that was given to them by the Israelis. Still the poster continued, “Covid continues to spread unchecked in Palestine today.” And “Covid is still a global struggle.” But the crux of the matter was that, as the poster concluded, “Disability justice and anti-imperialism includes wearing a mask beyond the encampment.” In other words, when a student wore a Covid face mask they could do so safe in the knowledge that they were not just protecting themselves from being recognized, but were also—in the act of wearing a cloth mask—fighting imperialism in America and the Middle East. Whether it was Covid protocols or the Middle East, it was clear that the Jews were the focus of any and every problem.