Propaganda has been used for centuries to foment hatred of an enemy, with the goals of encouraging enlistment, compliance with rationing, the purchase of war bonds, and payment of war taxes. People who wanted to start the Spanish-American War, for example, circulated cartoons of a “Spanish Brute” with the blood of American Sailors on his knife. Here is an “improved" version of the Spanish Brute. Publications of this nature helped convince Americans that Spain had blown up the USS Maine in Havana, and that war with Spain was necessary.

During the First World War, the Triple Entente depicted Germans, and especially the Kaiser, as semi-human brutes who abused women and murdered children. “Destroy This Mad Brute” depicts the Kaiser as a King Kong-like ape carrying off a half-naked woman with one hand and carrying a bloody club labeled “Kultur” (German for culture) in the other. This kind of propaganda drew the United States into a war in which it had no business, at the cost of 115,000 soldiers and sailors. The German who unfortunately learned the most from his country’s failure to, for example, demonize Britain for shipping weapons on the Lusitania was Adolf Hitler, and he used the lessons he learned to demonize Jews and others while taking over Germany.

During the Second World War, the Allies deployed similar propaganda against the Axis, and this time with ample justification because the Nazis and Imperial Japanese really did commit atrocities. “Keep This Horror From Your Home” depicts a brutal Japanese menacing a Caucasian woman and exhorts the reader to buy war bonds. The purpose of “This is the Enemy” appears to be only to foment anti-Japanese hatred, as it does not tell the reader to do anything. “Stop This Monster that Stops at Nothing,” which depicts Hitler and possibly Tojo as a two-headed monster, exhorts the American worker to “produce to your limit.” Another poster depicts a Japanese abusing a prisoner of war, asks, “What are you going to do about it?” and exhorts, “Stay on the job until every murdering Jap is wiped out.”

Who Needs Cartoonists When We Have Hamas and Its Water Carriers?

Although the anti-Axis propaganda was supported by the Axis’ behavior, it is telling that we had to supply the visuals… because the enemy did not send us selfies of his people abusing prisoners and women, or putting concentration camp prisoners into gas chambers. There were a few exceptions; the Japanese took pictures of themselves using Chinese prisoners for bayonet practice, although I don’t know whether they circulated them during the war or we discovered them after the war. Had they been available during the war, we would have probably used them to foment the most visceral imaginable hatred of the Japanese, and the same goes for photos of Nazi concentration camps. As matters stood, however, the Nazis tried to cover up evidence of their crimes rather than brag about them as Hamas has done.

Who needs a purported “Spanish Brute” or the Kaiser as King Kong when we have an actual picture of a Hamas terrorist posing with a terrified woman? One could easily caption this picture, “This is the Hamas APE. It wants to MURDER and RAPE,” with the addition of a crosshair on the terrorist’s forehead to suggest the obvious solution. Here is another of a terrorist forcing a woman into a vehicle. We can add the most dehumanizing language imaginable to depict the terrorist because his selfie, or photo taken by a like-minded friend, shows that he is an enemy of humanity (hostis humani generis) who deserves to be killed at the earliest opportunity.

While Hamas and the surrounding “Palestinian civil society” do not think highly of women, they don’t realize that propaganda that depicts violence against women (such as “Keep This Horror From Your Home”) is exactly what Western cultures use to elicit public hostility against the enemy. Hamas has therefore given Israel and its supporters reams of hate propaganda far more visceral than anything that either side used during the World Wars, and we should exploit it to the hilt. This means not only fomenting revulsion against Hamas, but also its supporters. Students, academicians, and others who call for boycotts of Israel, “Free Palestine,” and so on can be depicted, by name, as implicit supporters of rape and violence against women. Noting that seven unions including the UAW, NEA, and SEIU called for an end to U.S. military support for Israel; Hamas can even be made, via these unions, into Kamala Harris’s running mate just in time for the election.

Criminals4Palestine and Felons4Palestine

Let’s not forget the home front, where the enemy gives us property damage and disruption rather than violence. The Cornell Daily Sun reported recently, “‘Israel bombs, Cornell pays’ and ‘Blood is on your hands’ were spray painted in red along the front entrance of Day Hall — Cornell’s main administrative building. The front door glass was also smashed….” Vandalism that results in less than $250 in damage is a Class A misdemeanor; if the amount exceeds $250, and the damage was intentional, it’s a felony. This means that whoever defaced the administration building and smashed the glass is a criminal, and Criminals4Palestine seems like an appropriate hashtag for social media purposes. Maybe even Felons4Palestine. The basic idea is to educate the public that the kind of people who support “Free Palestine” are often common criminals who destroy other people’s property.

Here is vandalism of the White House Gate, which is federal property, by more Criminals4Palestine. If the cost of repair is $1,000 or less, it’s a misdemeanor; if it’s more, we have Felons4Palestine. We are again dealing with common criminals and therefore the dregs of our society, as opposed to anybody who is saying anything worthy of notice.

In any event, I encourage readers to add the hashtag Criminals4Palestine to all social media posts that feature vandalism by Hamas supporters to educate discussion participants as to the character of those who support “Palestine.”

Civis Americanus is the pen name of an American Thinker contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way.

Image from X.