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A few months ago, @ymeskhout shared a video of a 23-year-old American woman who happened across a diner decorated with what she thought were Israeli flags, and began tearing them off the diner while chanting various pro-Palestine slogans and condemning the diner for being complicit in genocide. The proprietor came out of the diner to ask her what on earth she was doing, and pointed out to her that (I'm sure you've guessed the punchline) it was a Greek diner decorated with Greek flags. Shortly afterwards, the woman was arrested for destruction of property.
Leaving aside what this farcical incident says about the typical pro-Palestine activist and how well-informed they are, what really jumped out at me was that the perpetrator recorded the video herself, and even after her mistake was pointed out to her while recording the video, she still uploaded it to TikTok under her personal account. Now, if it had been an Israeli diner, I can imagine a sufficiently committed activist publishing a video of themselves damaging it in order to make a political statement, fully cognizant of the fact that doing so would make it easier for the authorities to arrest and convict her. But this woman attempted to commit a crime in order to make a political statement, failed due to mistaken identity of her victims, and even after realising her mistake, still distributed the video of her committing the crime. Not only did she commit a crime for no discernible personal or political benefit, she made a complete unforced error in distributing evidence of her committing this crime under her personal TikTok account, again for literally no benefit that I can fathom (except maybe the fleeting dopamine hit of racking up some views of her making a fool of herself).
It's a level of idiocy I simply cannot fathom. As I said last month: attempts to practise law enforcement by appealing to the rationality and common sense of criminals are doomed to failure by virtue of the fact that criminals are a group heavily selected for lacking rationality or common sense.
Re: unfathomable idiocy
It demonstrates willingness to fuck shit up for Palestine, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. It's signalling her tribal affiliation and commitment.
I think this is stupid but I get it, I suppose.
I was about to ask how, exactly, destroying a Greek diner's exterior could possibly hope to advance the interests of the Palestinian cause.
... but then it occurred to me that "pointlessly destructive behaviour which could not possibly hope to advance the interests of the Palestinian cause even in principle" actually describes a great deal of pro-Palestine activism, and activism for a number of other omnicause issues. So, yeah, good point.
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This reminds me of a scene in one of the later seasons of Game of Thrones, where Tyrion, a dwarf with a scar across his face, is wanted for escaping after patricide, and some men are caught bringing the head of another dwarf that they marked with a scar. When Cersei (the queen and Tyrion's sister) notes this, the guards are about to send the men to the dungeons, but Cersei stops them, telling them that she doesn't want to discourage people from finding and bringing in the real one.
So it seems that Greece-associated things being damaged is a worthy cost to pay for maximizing the number of Israel-related things being damaged. Or, perhaps, "The optimal number of Greek things destroyed in the process of destroying Israeli things is not zero."
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