Posted October 26 at its website, a Globe and Mail [Canadian newspaper] columnist wrote how during a recent concert at Vancouver’s Hollywood Theatre, “a band member said something about a free Palestine. This, according to attendee Hanah Van Borek, led to a few shouts from the audience: ‘Fuck the Jews!’

"It was clearly audible in her area of the crowd, a person who was with her confirms, but nobody around them shut this down. There were some cheers of support, though. ‘My whole body went into shock,’ says Ms. Van Borek, who is Jewish.

“Ms. Van Borek left the venue and explained why to security staff. She says a worker encouraged her to go back inside and reassured her she was safe. ‘Nobody will be able to tell that you’re Jewish,’ he said, according to Ms. Van Borek. (Oy.)

"She did return to the show, but Ms. Van Borek was — and is — rattled. She supports the band’s right to make political statements. It was the shouts from this group — and the silence around them — that were alarming.”

I have long been, and still am, publicly critical [mostly via published letters to editors] of what I see as clear maltreatment of the general Palestinian people by the state of Israel [i.e. its government and security/defense agencies] and, with few exceptions, Western mainstream news-media’s seemingly intentional tokenistic (non)coverage of it.

By doing so, that media, whether they realize it or not, have done a disservice to its own reputation and the Israeli/Jewish people themselves. The road to hell, after all, is also paved with good intentions. Not as widely criticized thus publicized as the violence are the considerable fossil fuel reserves beneath long-held Palestinian land that are a plausible motivator for war.

Perhaps mostly because I have no Jewish heritage thus experience, I still never expected the level of anti-Semitic attacks in the West since the initial Hamas attack against Israelis. For one thing, the Jewish people in Israel and especially around the world must not be collectively vilified, let alone physically attacked, for the acts of Israel’s government and military, however one feels about the latter’s brutality in Gaza.

It’s blatantly wrong for them to be mistreated, if not terrorized, as though they were responsible for what is happening there. And it should be needless to say that diaspora Palestinians and Western Muslims similarly must not be collectively blamed and attacked for the acts of Hamas violence in Israel or Islamic extremist attacks outside the Middle East.

There seems to have been much latent animosity towards Jewish people in general, perhaps in part based on erroneous and disproven stereotypes thus completely unmerited. Also, incredible insensitivity was publicly shown towards Jews freshly mourning the 10/7 victims, especially when considering that young Israelis and Jews elsewhere may not be accustomed to such relatively large-scale carnage (at least not as much as is seen in other parts of the Middle East) in post-9/11 times.

Having the top-mentioned (in The Globe and Mail) ugly occurrence playout in my mind’s eye and ear left me disgusted. Particularly disturbing for me was the Jewish woman attending the concert being told by an employee there that she shouldn’t worry about the loudly voiced anti-Jewish anger, since “nobody will be able to tell that you’re Jewish”. (!?!)

But also concerning about all of the highly publicized two-way partisan exchanges of fury is: what will young diaspora Jewish and Palestinian children think and feel if/when they hear such misdirected vile hatred towards their fundamental identity? Scary is the real possibility that such public outpour of blind hatred may lead some young children to feel very misplaced shame in their heritage.

And then there's the ugly external politics of polarization, perhaps in part for its own sake. Particularly with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, current and past, one can observe widespread ideological/political partisanship via news and commentary. Within social media the polarized views are especially amplified, including, if not especially, those of non-Jews and non-Palestinians.

While the conflict can and does arouse a spectator sport effect or mentality, many contemptible news trolls residing outside the region actively decide which ‘side’ they hate less thus ‘support’ via politicized commentary posts. I anticipate many actually keep track of the bloody match by checking the day’s-end death-toll score, however lopsided the numbers.