Wednesday: Hili dialogue

49 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

1. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
   What power has love but forgiveness? -William Carlos Williams, poet (17 Sep 1883-1963)

2. You set the case for Israel’s engagement in Gaza City well, PCC(E).
   Except maybe:

   “I’m wondering what these critics would have Israel do.”

   Do you care?
   I don’t. My enemy’s life has negative moral value to me and there are (effectively, I mean.. toddlers) no civilians in Gaza. This is the hardest thing for westerners to get (took me years and years!): there’s no society like “Palestine”, and Gaza is the most extreme element. No other country’s entire moral and cultural identity is about killing, entirely, one’s neighbors. (as you’ve read in my column, hopefully).
   Witness : https://democracychronicles.org/so-what-of-gaza-trumps-plan-and-some-context/

   They had a conference in Gaza in 2021 saying EXACTLY that and pretty much everybody there wants to destroy Israel. THey have elaborate plans for it, and their “day after”. You don’t see that in Russia-Ukraine, or any other war in our lifetimes.

   Fuel the jets Israeli heroes.
   D.A.
   NYC

3. I’m inclined to cut Vance a bit of slack here. He does appear to have got his facts wrong re Open Society and the Ford Foundation re the Nation, but not overall. I’ve dealt with both groups in the past and they’re very leftist in their outlook and in what they fund, not to mention providing rotating sinecures for lefty friends who need jobs. And the comments on Bluesky celebrating after Kirk’s murder were truly disgusting. I think if a good friend of mine were murdered like that, I’d feel the same way regarding “unity” with people who applaud such violence.

4. I don’t think the Appeals Court would have looked at her mortgage documents. This is a suit merely related to the President’s ability to fire her. The merits of the mortgage case aren’t at issue and haven’t been adjudicated. Of course, this can still be appealed to the Supreme Court. If that fails, once her fraud trial is complete, if she is found guilty, then the whole matter may come up again.

5. More information on Kirk and the Replacement Theory. This holds that elites are trying to replace whites with non-whites by mass immigration.

   Kirk believed it and believed the elites were Jews. His positive stance on Israel was simply standard for evangelical Christians: Jews moving to Israel bring on the second coming.

   I never found the theory believable because I could never understand the motive.

   In a previous discussion it was suggested that that leftist politicians were trying to import voters. I think that was definitely Trudeau’s motive as he fast tracked citizenship (didn’t work him—he brought them in too fast and created a massive housing crisis. He’s been chased out of office.) But his party still won the last election. However there’s no indication there were malevolent Jews involved.

   But it doesn’t explain the Biden episode: which consisted of allowing millions of illegals in. They can’t vote and US law is extremely strict on them becoming legal. They have to leave the US for ten years and apply to enter.

   Biden’s motive remains unknown to me. He wasn’t think too straight as dementia took hold.

   The Replacement Theory still leaves unanswered the question: how do these malevolent elite Jews benefit?

   Source on Kirk (former fact checker from the Washington Post):

   https://glennkessler.substack.com/p/did-charlie-kirk-really-say-that

   1. Maybe it’s just that a certain type of white person — I won’t say right or left — believes that white people like themselves have messed up the western world and, against all the evidence of history, things will be better when we no longer run the show as the majority. People like Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau get elected not because all these new arrivals will vote for them — they mostly can’t and don’t as you say — but because lots of white people will. The celebratory message that America will not be a white majority by such-and-such a date resonates with these white people who value diversity for its own sake. They believe that black and aboriginal people are somehow better than they are and when people like Joe Biden express admiration for the coming replacement of us with them, they like the message. Until they think it through or, more prosaically, until rapid immigration drives up housing costs because the same people keen on being replaced also won’t let developers build more houses and they threaten to impose rent control on rental apartments.

      We bought into immigration as a way to youthify our population distribution and to manage “structural” unemployment, what with boomers not having had enough children. For years the only people who pointed out that this wouldn’t work — immigrants get old and sick, too — were the “far-right” People’s Party of Canada, which has never elected a single MP ever. Now of course it’s standard official Received Wisdom. Most of the people, foreign or domestic, having large families are the ones we want fewer of. (Observant Jews and evangelical Christians being the conspicuous exceptions.). If we want enough of them to youthify our population, they will replace us. No two ways about it. No conspiracy.

      I remember from high school there was a fashionable view that black and aboriginal people “deserved” to take over and we had it coming. I don’t think we believed we white “allies” would get to be commissars in the new regime or anything sophisticated like that. Just adolescent foolishness expressed to annoy our parents. Once we started being responsible for our futures we memory-holed those views. Or at least I thought we had.

      1. ” they mostly can’t and don’t as you say — but because lots of white people will. ”

         Yes, Leslie. I might even say it is the “River to Sea” useful watermelons – b/c the ideology is similar. This uniquely western self hated is curious but moves mountains.
         Robert Scruton called it Oikophobia and it is amazingly self lacerating. Douglas Murray describes it well in The War on the West.

         best,
         D.A.
         NYC

         1. I thought I understood White Guilt. Clearly I don’t. Or is this mess something different?

   2. Kirk believed it and believed the elites were Jews.

      No, that’s not what he said, and you are fundamentally misunderstanding him. Let’s take this in steps:

      1) Kirk was pro-Jewish and pro-Israel.

      2) Woke ideology is strongly anti-Israel and pretty much anti-Jewish. Woke ideology is strongly anti “whiteness” and anti white people (among which it counts Jews). Critical Race Theory divides people into “oppressors” and “oppressed” and regards Jews as “oppressors”.

      3) Kirk, who was strongly anti-woke, also saw woke ideology as contrary to Jewish interests. In particular, he thought that “open borders” means the influx of many people who hate Jews.

      4) Despite this, some of the major donors to woke causes, including open borders and CRT, were Jews. George Soros is the most obvious, but there are others. Kirk saw these people as acting against both American interests and against Jewish interests (which he saw as aligned).

      5) His quotes are thus criticising some notable Jewish people for acting against Jewish interests.

      Of the quotes your source gives:

      “Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they’re coming for Jews, …” Note, that last “… now they’re coming for Jews”. This is criticising Soros et al for acting against Jewish interests.

      “Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years. Stop supporting causes that hate you …”. The “you” there is Jews, he is saying to Soros et al “stop supporting causes that hate Jews”.

      “Israel will be in jeopardy as long as the western children, children of the west, are being taught, with primarily Jewish dollars, subsidizing it, to view everything through oppressor oppressed dynamic.” Ditto. Kirk is saying that Soros et al’s funding is jeopardizing, not only the West, but also Israel.

      None of this from Kirk is anti-Jewish, it is pro-Jewish.

      1. He’s accusing them of being big funders of what conservatives believe are undesirable even destructive causes.

         I’ve seen that attitude before on certain sites and believe me, they’re not pro-Jewish. This is obvious in their other comments where they criticize Jews strongly and crudely.

         Your arguments do not convince me, not after my exposure to (and endless arguing with) these people. He’s one of them, the signs are clear.

         1. What a drag that so much brain power is focused on the supposed intricacies of the politics of the guy who was slain. I detest this. What’s the point? If you’re correct, does that justify the assassination?

            1. I shouldn’t have phrased that so personally. My apologies, Frau. I wish I hadn’t written “youre”. My intention isn’t to attack you. I just feel strongly that this whole thing is headed in a terrible direction. The us and them thing is what got us here. It surely doesn’t help that the president and vice president are so close to this and that the entire administration is taking sides. What a mess we’re in. I’m sickened by all this.

         2. I just posted an addendum that was meant for you, Frau, but it wound up under my own comment. I wonder if this one will go where I want it to. Didn’t mean to go after you personally was my point

         3. “He’s accusing them of being big funders of what conservatives believe are undesirable even destructive causes.”

            Undesirable and destructive for the Jews. He said that clearly. His example was the pro-Palestine hysteria (hysteria is my word, not his.)

            Frau, you’re condemning him based on what you’ve heard on “certain sites.” That’s not fair. He wasn’t the rabid right-wing bigoted hater he’s been made out to be.

      2. How quickly “he blamed a Jew” morphs into “he blamed THE Jews.” It’s the standard rhetorical leap, one of the laziest and most tiresome forms of political nonsense: if you criticize one rich Jew because of his progressive politics, then you are supposedly invoking anti-Semitic tropes of Jews and money. Kirk knew full well that he was being provocative in critiquing influential Jews for being, in his light, against the interests of Israel. But he didn’t care because 1) he believed his charge to be correct, and 2) he refused to let left-wing ideologues dictate to him what language he could use. The latter is a lesson that many moderate liberals could benefit from on an array of topics.

         Of course, you can’t criticize a black man or woman in progressive America, either, without being against blacks and women or something. Perhaps it is inevitable in collectivist thinking. Well, unless you want to criticize Sheldon and Miriam Adelson or Clarence Thomas. Then billionaire Jews and black men are fair game. I continually wonder how the partisan hacks can even take themselves seriously.

      3. You should ask why Kirk and his ilk are pro-Jewish. It ain’t ’cause they’re pro-Jewish… It’s prophetic shite and very questionable end-times doctrine. 8-mountain Woo-whack. Not to be underestimated, these religious zealots, they have Trump, so massive power is in their long arms.

         1. ?? I can’t find a useful reference to “8-mountain”. I infer it’s some survivalist thing. Right?

            1. Sorry, it’s called the Seven Mountain Mandate. It’s a call for Christians to take control of seven key areas of society/government/culture and take control of Earth before the 2nd coming. Kirk was in their camp and so are other Trump influencers. Followers of the mandate think Trump has a divine purpose in making it happen.

            2. Bummer. I would have preferred survivalists.

   3. “His positive stance on Israel was simply standard for evangelical Christians: Jews moving to Israel bring on the second coming.”

      There is nothing whatsoever standard about the above view except insofar as it is a common misunderstanding of evangelical Dispensationalist theology. I won’t bore people with the details, but while it is true that Israel is intimately connected with evangelical End Times theology, there is no causal connection in that theology between human action and what they see as God’s plan. They don’t believe that there is anything that they or anyone else can do to “bring on the Second Coming.” Unlike certain strains of Islam that assert that they can hasten the return of the Mahdi, the evangelicals believe all timing is entirely in God’s hands.

      But while evangelical devotion to Israel is both independent of and intertwined with their End Times thinking, it is true that their fascination with events in Israel stems from a belief that they are watching possible precursors to End Times events play out before them. And, yes, the gathering of Jews in Israel is one of those signs of the times that many of them watch for. But they also see the worldwide condemnation of Israel, particularly through globalized political structures, as another major sign—and they have been predicting it long before 1948. Another major strain of thought which lessened after the Cold War but has now regained steam is that a military alliance of Russia, Iran, and others will array against Israel.

      I find it interesting how evangelical emphases morph with the news yet maintain a certain consistency. But they see these as signs, and they don’t believe they can facilitate the Second Coming by aiding or accelerating that move to Israel or by supporting Israeli government policy. And the younger generations are moving away from the full-throated Israel support of their elders. Israel cannot take U.S. support for granted over the next twenty years. Paul Boyer’s “When Time Shall Be No More” is, while a bit dated, still a fascinating read on this subset of American culture.

      1. “Evangelical Dispensationalist theology. I won’t bore people with the details…”

         Thanks for sparing us the word salad. But you sorta world saladed anyway…

      2. Warning: Dispensationalist mumbo-jumbo follows….

         Maybe they don’t believe that there is anything that they or anyone else can do to “bring on the Second Coming”; but they (or at least some) believe that there are things they can do to not delay it. In particular the Second Temple must be rebuilt before J.C. can reboot everything. I don’t recall why. If someone wants a chapter-and-verse I’ll try to find it; or, drop by your local Evangelical church and ask — they’ll be very happy to bend your ear.

   4. “But it doesn’t explain the Biden episode: which consisted of allowing millions of illegals in. They can’t vote and US law is extremely strict on them becoming legal.”

      The critical link you missed here, Frau Katze, is that Dems opened the borders to millions of poor people who would need social services and then pushed for a “pathway to citizenship” for all of them. The assumption is that all those new poor citizens dependent on services would vote Dem, giving the Dems a permanent lock on power. This so-called “replacement theory” was spelled out in a book by former Dem advisors in the 1990s, and championed by no less than Hillary Clinton. It is a real strategy that has nothing whatsoever to do with Jews.

      1. I did not know it was laid out in a book! Do you remember the name?

         I’m sure the Jews were added later and only on these oddball sites.

         I’ve noticed that at the conservative WSJ (where commenters must be polite and couldn’t mention Jewish conspiracy theories) the readers are EXTREMELY UPSET by Biden’s virtually open border. They want them all deported.

         The editorial board (who care about business) keep writing pieces complaining about the deportations. They get hundreds of negative comments.

         The EB also complains about tariffs but these don’t get the emotional reaction.

         1. I looked it up for you. The book is called The Emerging Democratic Majority
            by John B Judis & Ruy Teixeira. Teixeira has since disowned the replacement strategy on his blog (I follow his substack – lots of interesting stuff there).

         2. Mike ain’t correct.

            Replacement theory comes from a French author, here:

            The French author of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is Renaud Camus. He first popularized the phrase in his 2011 book, Le Grand Remplacement.
            The theory, which has been widely discredited, is based on the racist claim that white European populations are being deliberately and systematically replaced by non-white immigrants, primarily from Muslim-majority countries.

            Replacement attacks, google it. Cited in many mass killings across the world.

            1. I was referring to the American version. Of course there is a European version as well, claiming that big business interests pushed to import young men from mostly Islamic countries to replace the dwindling number of young native European workers due to low European birthrates and an aging population.

            2. As is often the case, the truth lies between the two extremes. I certainly don’t believe that some secret world government/Soros/Gates/Thunberg/Bilderberg or whatever is running the world, much less that they are engineering the great replacement at all, whether or not it would be motivated by racism if it happened. But several mainstream political parties in many countries openly say that without an influx of young immigrants society will collapse. It is certainly true that a) the birth rates of traditional populations have declined and b) people are getting older, so a system in which those working now effectively pay for the retirement, health care, etc. of those retired is being stretched.

               There are several problems with the idea that importing poor immigrants will solve such problems. First, most of them are not “doctors and engineers”. Second, even if they were, that would mean that the idea is that the other countries pay for their education then Western countries attract them with better salaries. Seems rather like colonialism to me. And if such people are siphoned off, the countries where they come from will not improve (which might be intentional, since if they did the scheme would no longer work). Third, in contrast to immigrants fleeing right-wing dictatorships for more leftist countries and being happy to learn the language and blend in, most modern immigrants are just fleeing poverty. The developed countries cannot take in even a small fraction of all poor people and expect that to solve the problems. Also, they often take their ideologies with them. Asylum-seekers from Islamistic regimes aren’t happy to be away, they criticize their adopted country and many want to import their culture.

               I was recently at a talk where the speaker recounted some old arguments for keeping women out of higher education. One was that the birthrate would decline. She said it expecting a reaction like the one had she said that the ancient Greeks thought that the womb moved around in the body, that women have fewer teeth than men (Aristotle, who was married twice), that men have fewer ribs than women because of Adam and Eve etc. But the (mostly silent) reaction was “well, that has now indeed come to pass”. It is a false dichotomy to claim that it’s either that or barefoot and pregnant. It is possible to build a society where women are educated AND there is a sustainable birthrate. That used to be the case in Sweden, for example, where it was not uncommon for (somewhat—the differences weren’t so great) richer and better educated people to have MORE children. But that welfare-state system has collapsed largely to too much immigration and people living off benefits perpetually rather than using them for what they were intended for.

               Someone mentioned here recently that the myth that Scandinavia is utopian because atheist needs to be busted. Less influence of religion probably played a role, but there were many other reasons. Also, those times are long gone. It might still be better than many other places, but the time when it was head and shoulders above the rest of the world is no more. There is a really perceptive book about this change called Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future that Disappeared, which one the Orwell Prize for non-fiction. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_in_Utopia

            3. In what sense is it a “conspiracy theory” that is “widely discredited”? Massive migration into Europe, much of it from Muslim countries is a fact. The fraction of the population that is Muslim is climbing rapidly. And, yes, it is being done deliberately in the sense that governments are issuing hundreds of thousands of visas for migrants from Muslim-majority nations. And in Britain, for example, native British people are projected to become a minority in coming decades. They already are a minority in many of Britain’s largest cities. Which bit of this do you think is not true?

            4. I also can’t stand the hypocrisy of politicians who say that people smuggling immigrants in are the problem and that they need to be treated as common criminals while at the same time most RECOGNIZED asylum seekers would not have been able to make the journey without them. If there is no legal way to enter a country (in many cases, one can claim asylum only from within the country), then the only way to get in is to do it illegally. As long as that is the case, there will be pressure for people to enter illegally and for others to help them. There is an old law of the sea which obliges sailors to help other sailors in distress. What is happening now in the Mediterranean is that the passengers intentionally put themselves in danger so that they will be taken to a save port, which is of course a blatant abuse of the law. In other words, it’s not a bug but a feature that the boats often capsize and so on.

            5. Great minds think alike. 🙂

               I think the only issue is whether it is like I described it, which is not only a fact but not even one which is disputed by anyone, or whether it is all being managed behind the scenes by some secret elite pulling the strings, who are also putting microchips into vaccines, covering up Roswell, etc.

            6. I’ve just looked it up:

               In 1950, Britain’s three largest cities were 99% native British, a population that had been settled for a thousand years.

               Today, London is 37% native British, Manchester 42% native British, and Birmingham 44% native British. The majority are post-1960 migrants and their children.

               In recent years (the “Boris wave” and since) the population is changing at 2% a year (that’s 40% in 20 years). A vast rate of population change is indeed happening!

               And yet we’re told that the idea that this is happening is a “discredited conspiracy theory” schemed up by loons who hate Jews?

6. I, for one, would like to know where Antifa gets its funding, as well as pro-Hamas groups like SJP.

   It is true that these groups don’t often kill, but they do engage in a lot of lower level violence and intimidation.

   Wasn’t intimidation the whole point of the baseball bat Hakeem Jeffries was waving around?

   And what did Chuck Schumer mean when he said: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind
   and you will pay the price.” Exactly what price did Schumer have in mind?

   And what was Keith Ellison trying to say when posted a photo on Twitter of himself posing with the book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook?”

   Sure, there is plausible deniability, but the message is clear.

   1. The diff groups have different funders I think Lysander. More info about these funding networks to NGOs is coming out and will be useful.

      Two big changes are funding from Qatar – which started 30 years ago – I witnessed its genesis studying Middle East pol at Georgetown U., one of Qatar’s first beneficiaries.
      They needn’t have bothered though, the anti-Israel bias was well established by then.

      The second change is tik tok, which isn’t about funding at all. It is about lighting a fire under our elite (but often dateless) female college girls, and youth generally. TT’s algorithm is almost entirely pro-Pal, and these days that’s where teh kids get their “news”. And the kids become journalists and write for PBS and BBC, completing the whole Muslim Brotherhood circle.
      D.A.
      NYC

      1. Re dateless, I don’t get it. Horny males will, in general, hit on anything with a pulse. Is there potassium nitrate in their campus food or something.

         1. A man would have to be insane — yes, testosterone does make you insane to some extent — to proposition a woman for a date on a college campus today. If he gets smeared on social media his dating career is over. He might get expelled if he can’t prove, when the girl rescinds consent retroactively because she felt “used” the next day, that he had obtained all elements of FRIES consent and no psychoactive substances were involved that might, in retrospective scrutiny, have invalidated it. She is even allowed to lie to police or campus investigators about what happened as a legitimate way to process her trauma. I know mothers of adolescent boys are teaching them this as a survival skill. All dates should be chaperoned to protect the man’s reputation and liberty, as they were for centuries until the invention of the drive-in movie theatre.

            The kind of woman David is referring to, like the famous “scream” lady at President Trump’s first inauguration, would struggle to attract men at the best of times (if they are so attracted). Today they are Trouble with a capital T.

            (I don’t remember dating at all during my first year at university, or much in my whole time come to think of it. Even later when I had a steady girlfriend I didn’t see much of her. Math, physics, chemistry, biology, and philosophy kept me pretty busy, then organic chemistry…fageddabahdit. None of the engineering students I lived with seemed to have much time for women, either. They had the hots for nursing students but mostly theoretically.)

            1. I find it hard to credit that there is that much sociopathy among today’s young women, but you’re a reliable reality-based correspondent so I accept it. Can’t young men mostly detect and avoid the (small?) minority of screaming nut-jobs?

               And thanks for introducing me to FRIES; clearly the S does not stand for spontaneity; and the E for enthusiasm is a bit rich, eh? In which SI units is enthusiasm to be measured? I can see why dating can seem too much trouble, but what’s the alternative? Has there been a boom in commercial sex work around campuses?

               And I could not, would not, have imagined that the Sexual Revolution would have its own Stalinist Terror. Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.

         2. I found this while I was looking for something else:
            https://www.richardhanania.com/p/hitler-demi-moore-and-other-pedophiles (2023)
            Subtitle is “How blank slatism led to the demonization of heterosexuality”
            It’s long and rambling but for the point I was making here, scroll down to the reference to Ezra Klein’s take on the 2014 Yes Means Yes law, aka the You’d Better be Pretty Damn Sure law. Klein writes:

            “No Means No” has created a world where women are afraid. To work, “Yes Means Yes” needs to create a world where men are afraid.

            For that reason, the law is only worth the paper it’s written on if some of the critics’ fears come true. Critics worry that colleges will fill with cases in which campus boards convict young men (and, occasionally, young women) of sexual assault for genuinely ambiguous situations. Sadly, that’s necessary for the law’s success. It’s those cases — particularly the ones that feel genuinely unclear and maybe even unfair, the ones that become lore in frats and cautionary tales that fathers e-mail to their sons — that will convince men that they better Be Pretty Damn Sure.

            Since no one can know ahead of time if an encounter will go this route, the prudent thing for men is to treat all women as radioactive.

            1. It’s pretty clear that without some due process, any system for adjudicating they-said-they-said claims will be gamed to be manifestly unfair to one party or the other. Here’s an idea: after an initial triage to filter out blatantly vexatious or frivolous claims, and after serious attempts at mediation / reconciliation, flip a coin. The loser then gets punished. It would be unbiased, and the chance of punishment would surely strongly deter many malicious (etc.) claims and counter-claims. Sort of “let the gods decide” (since we humans sure can’t).

7. Has Israel made the 47 minute video that they tried to get Greta to watch public? I believe that it would certainly open a few eyes of those who feel that Israel is not justified in their response to Hamas.

   1. You could find it on the Internet a while ago but it’s very hard to find. I’ve watched it and yes, it’s grim .

8. While the Trump administration punishes universities for not confronting antisemitism on campus, the same andministration encourages antisemitism by citing George Soros’s Open Society Foundations*. The administration is trying to have it both ways. Do they oppose antisemitism or are they for it? It would seem to depend on whether or not they can take advantage. Charlie Kirk may have opposed Soros because he thought that Soros’s foundations were opposed to Jewish interests, as Coel argues above. But is Vance’s opposition as refined and nuanced as that, or is he taking advantage of knee-jerk antisemitism in his attack?

   *Just do a search on “George Soros and antisemitism” to read innumerable articles on Soros’s “globalism”—a long-standing antisemitic trope levied against Soros, who is of Jewish heritage.

   Regarding the Israeli “drone” attacks on Greta Thunberg’s flotilla, some report that the supposed drone was a firecracker set off on the ship and that the drone claim was made up: https://nypost.com/2025/09/09/world-news/greta-thunbergs-gaza-flotilla-not-hit-by-drone-tunisia-says/.

   Fourteen-year-old Chaim Grosbard, killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz, bears a resemblance to members of my own family. A loss the world cannot forget.

   1. Yes, Soros is bitterly despised in Replacement Theory circles.

      Even if Kirk is an edge case (on the border) most of them aren’t. But no politician (as least in the US) would be stupid enough to be openly anti-Jewish.

      My exposure to evangelical Christians does not suggest that they’re all Replacement Theory believers. Or even most of them.

      1. Please take care about making too many comments in a thread. Not that they’re bad, but the Roolz talk about roughly how many comments one should make before they become too numerous.

      2. Doug’s elucidation of evangelism reminds me to be careful. In terms of large families, I was referring specifically to Dutch Reform congregations in Ontario. While the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands was formed as a union with evangelical elements, Dutch Reform in the Americas is more straight-up Calvinist. Some scholars consider Calvinism to be one of the evangelical sects; others, including some Dutch Reformed writers, don’t.

         Dutch contribution to American history is of course well known. After the Revolution stimulated settlement in the wilderness to the north, Dutch immigrants farmed the fertile land of Southern Ontario from Windsor to Uxbridge and were the first to put Holland Marsh, which feeds Toronto, under the plough in the 1920s after it was substantially drained as the region became developed. (The name is a coincidence. Holland was an early provincial official of British origin.)
         https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Marsh

         After the Second World War, many Dutch people immigrated to Ontario and their descendants still farm or run agribusinesses. The Canadian Army, after a disappointing showing in the Battle for France, had been redeployed to the liberation of Holland (including clearing the Scheldt Estuary to allow Allied access to the crucial port of Antwerp after the failure of Operation Market Garden.) To this day there is great affection for Canada in the Netherlands. There are many Dutch Reform churches and private schools in Ontario farm country, and large families of tall blond children are frequent and obvious. Our Member of Parliament includes among his bona fides as an ally of Israel the history that his grandparents in Holland hid Jews from the Nazi occupiers. Whether they did this out of evangelism, or personal conviction that it was right, I do not know. People running for office here don’t wear their religion on their sleeves.

   2. The Great Replacement is not such a big deal on the American right. The perception of Jews being duplicitous traitors is secondary to the main issue: Israel.

      Many young right-wingers, especially the Christians, increasingly feel that they are cucks, bootlickers, useful idiots for Israel. Their policitians support Israel completely unconditionally, even when that goes against America’s national interests (“die for Israel”), robs them of representation (“register AIPAC as a foreign agent”) and insults them (“Israel first”). (Some also have concerns over topics like free speech, where cracking done on free speech on behalf of Israel makes their side look like hypocrites.) They do not understand why they should so zealously support a foreign country that is only good for Jews. Kirk was an old-fashioned supporter of Israel, and got some flak for it.

      My main source is admittedly Twitter, but 15 years ago a European right-wing populist party was sure to be pro-Israel and there was no possibility any Republican could defect. That is obviously no longer true, and I guess that’s why there is now more effort in retaining its Christian/Conservative supporters with odd episodes like excusing Elon Musk’s nazi salute.

9. Greta Thunberg’s “Freedom Flotilla” (as in “Palestine be judenrein”) is sailing during peak Medicane season….

   1. If Greta’s boat sinks and she floats, that will prove she is a witch!

      1. Perhaps that rule-of-thumb needs to be updated for modern times, what with life jackets and other floatation devices. And surely if she doesn’t float that does not prove she isn’t (wasn’t) a witch, right?

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