The Squad in Congress, the president of Columbia (country), a minority of students at Harvard, Black Lives Matter, Code Pink, the Socialists of America, and other sundry anti-Semites have started criticizing Israel for its wartime measures against Hamas. The interesting thing here is that they want Israel to accept responsibility for what is happening to the Gazans. While not surprising, it is very interesting. If they were truly concerned about saving the Gazans from the ravages of war, the correct response would be to advocate for Hamas to surrender. War would stop if they laid down their arms and released their hostages. The Hamas members might have to leave Gaza, but they would leave with their lives.

Of course, surrender is not an acceptable solution because that gives a victory to Israel and cannot be allowed. Death is preferable. If the death of Israeli Jews cannot be achieved, the death of Hamas fighters is the second-best solution and, indeed, is a virtue. When a member of Hamas dies in battle, he immediately becomes a martyr.

When anger is so great, only death is an acceptable outcome. Why? Why is no one asking the question, “What allows a member of Hamas to cut off a baby’s head while still smiling?”

What is the source of Arab anger? It is not just anger at Jews. It’s anger, in general, that seeks an object for the overwhelming internal boiling rage. Before the October Catastrophe that continues as I write, the news in Israel was frequently focused on inter-Arab anger. In the first eight months of 2023, there were approximately 180 murders in Arab communities. Of course, that is dwarfed by Chicago or St. Louis, but it is significant in Israel, a country with a low violent crime rate. Except for an occasional deranged wife or husband, this is not how things proceed between Jews, even among career criminals.

Image: Arabs in Gaza celebrate slaughtering Jewish children. YouTube screen grab.

So, again, we need to ask about the prime cause of Arab anger. Not surprisingly, there are numerous sources. Each guess could easily supply a number of graduate students with the material for their dissertations.

Poverty: There are few jobs in Gaza, so men cannot earn a living and raise a family. There are few basements for unmarried males, but many 30-year-olds still live with mom and dad. So, we have the inability to move ahead with life.

Not enough women: If one man can have four wives, three men must do without. This mathematical surety can make conquest and slaughter of neighbors a necessary practice to acquire enough females for the men who were lacking ‘companionship.’ War and its associated anger solve the problem of too few women.

Permission: Arab culture does not discourage anger against outsiders or insiders who revolt against their assigned roles. Sadness at the exigencies of life, as an alternative response to anger, is not manly. Sadness could lead one to focus inward to resolve some of life’s problems, but anger pinpoints an external target.

Family dynamics: In Arab culture, children belong to the father. A mother’s love for her children gets perverted and, if she’s angry at her husband in a culture that devalues women, the children become pawns at a level we cannot understand. How else could moms accept, permit, or even, in a few cases, encourage martyrdom for their male children? There is no love lost there, except for the first moments after being told of the death.

This phenomenon gives Arab family life a bad name! Or does it? We must consider the possibility that male martyrdom makes polygamy a practical system. This structure supports the preservation of the elites of traditional Arab society. Successful businessmen and politicians can build mansions and compounds for their extended families while the young men boil in anger on the streets. In this way, it is the same mechanism employed by elites worldwide: retain control through the degradation of the poor.

Finally, there are dreams of happiness that can only be realized with the deaths of others. This is not exactly revenge, but similar. If the Jews can be conquered and driven into the sea, life will be better. Shame will be erased. Victory will permit us to walk with our heads tall, say the delusional Arabs. Sometimes, there is a hint of reality in Arab thinking. About a year ago, a Hamas spokesman declared they would eliminate all Jews in Israel, but retain their scientists. Oh! Perhaps success comes from a source other than the slaughter of your enemies!

So, there we have it! Anger exists and finds its target: In this case, 40 dead, decapitated, and dismembered Jewish babies among 1200 victims at this moment. This is a brief outline of how Arabs, among others, can hate another person they have never met before—to the point of being able to kill them with open pleasure.