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Notes -
In an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and associated culture war, we now have one of the first(?) terroristic threat charges brought against someone in the States. A teacher felt that a student’s comment about his flag was disrespectful and responded by threatening to behead her. It is reported that the teacher shouted:
And students report hearing that
The teacher who made this terroristic threat is Benjamin Reese, a Jewish man from Georgia, and the flag he had in his room was an Israeli flag [1] [2]. I find this noteworthy for two reasons. A Jewish man is making threats that I would have guessed came from a Muslim, which tells me about my bias and the level of passion on both sides of the conflict right now. But I’m also surprised that, despite the story first being published 24hrs ago, it’s untouched by mainstream news except RawStory. There’s local affiliates, RawStory, and YahooFinance Canada. But there’s no CNN, Fox, NYTimes, etc. They can’t be waiting for more information, because we already have the police reports. I predict that this story will not gain the traction that it would had the threat been made by a Palestinian man, or Muslim generally. Certainly that would be brought up on prime time Fox.
This instantly reminded me of the Day of Hate news blitz, when the Chabad-affiliated Barry (Baruch) Nockowitz picked up a toddler and threw him against a wall because of “anti-semitism”, telling police he would find another kid to attack [3]. Besides Miami Herald, this had zero news coverage, all the while coinciding with the “day of hate” which received George Floyd levels of news coverage and zero crimes committed. (As proof of how little coverage it got, themotte is on the first page of google results for his name, linking to the last time I mentioned this crime).
Maybe America could do with a general taboo against the display of all flags except the US flag?
I recall the debate over Tlalib's Palestinian flag (and comparisons to a Congressman showing up in his IDF uniform) and it all seems like a - somewhat distasteful - hassle.
The one that was funniest to me on this front was being in Ireland and North Ireland shortly after the start of the Ukraine War. Due to the history of hostilities, there are generally not very many flags flown in Belfast. Either the Union Jack or Irish flag could be a point of incitement. The blue and yellow though? Plenty of those!
I am assuming you were in the City Centre which is indeed somewhat neutral territory for British/Irish flags for exactly the reason you state. But go a l little beyond that in Belfast and you will quite easily know which side you are on based upon the flags flying and which colours the kerbs are painted. And Israeli/Palestinian flags as well.
There is a reason why I joke that living in Northern Ireland is good preparation for moving to the US as a Brit. Flags almost everywhere, armed police on the streets and much more religious than the average Brit would be used to.
Also everything’s fried. Probably not a coincidence that one of if not the biggest ethnic group in the US white population is literally from Northern Ireland.
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Correct assumption. Sadly, I was pretty sick and wound up not exploring the city as much as I would have liked. Normally, I would have gotten in a nice long run and seen quite a bit on foot, but wound up confined to a smaller area than usual (except for when we drove North for a daytrip). It was still enough to finally get some visceral understanding of what the deal is with Northern Ireland being British, which I previously understood intellectually, but was always puzzled by.
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