• by Joe Mandese , October 23, 2023

One of the interesting things about being Jewish is that I even am.

In most other cultures, I would only be considered half of whatever it is.

And while I’m of Italian Catholic descent from my father’s side, my mother was Jewish, which makes me irrevocably 100% Jewish, even if I don’t identify with it religiously.

It’s even more complicated than that -- because being Jewish is not just a religion, but a race, an ethnicity, and according to many, a nationality.

Whatever you want to call it, I do identify as being a Jew, so when a troll began questioning my heritage on social media – implying I’m a “Democrat” (I’m not) and associating me with an image of a protester brandishing a sign reading “Zionism is the New Nazism,” (see above) I reported it as hate speech to the platform the troll was spreading it on -- X.

“Hello, we’re writing to let you know that after viewing the available information, we didn’t find a violation of our rules in the content you reported,” read the response I got almost immediately -- from Twitter, not X -- which I’m guessing means nobody actually reviewed it or attempted to do anything about it. And @PatrickSquarep6 can go on defaming my character and Jewish heritage, because Twitter -- or X -- has zero liability and because Elon Musk’s pay-to-say whatever you want to whomever your want -- and get a share of the ad revenues when you do – business model.

"We know we don't always get it right. So if you think we made a mistake, you can click this link and provide any additional information you have about this content. Thanks, Twitter," X's auto response continued.

I tried clicking on the links, but -- no surprise -- it didn't work.

Since I can’t get X to set the record straight, I hope you won’t mind if I use a “Red, White & Blog” column to do so.

As an American Jew, I 100% support Israel’s right to exist and its right to defend itself.

I consider Hamas a terrorist organization that kills Jews and needs to be eradicated.

I sympathize with the plight of the Palestinian people and believe the policies of Netanyahu’s hawkish, right-wing government have been inhumanely oppressing them and that needs to change.

I know that last part isn’t popular to say in the aftermath of Israel’s equivalent of 9/11, but just like I didn’t support the policies of the Bush/Cheney Administration in the aftermath of our 9/11, I don’t support the policies of the current Israeli government.

And in the same way that Al-Qaeda provoked an irrational overkill American response to our 9/11, I think Hamas is getting Israel to do exactly what it wants -- to lash out indiscriminately and squander the support people have for Israel, and ultimately, for Jewish people overall. Did I mention that Hamas' stated goal is to kill Jews?

We’ve all watched as public expressions of anti-Semitism, as well as increased violence against Jews, have gathered steam in the U.S. and worldwide, from Charlottesville to the Tree of Life Synagogue, to rampant hate speech against Jews being expressed freely and without limits on some social-media platforms.

And if the “fog of war” coverage of the past couple of weeks is any indication, the mainstream news media need to do a better job of reporting facts, not misinformation and false narratives.

In the immediate aftermath of America’s 9/11 and many times since then, I have used the analogy of using America’s own free-market industries as weapons of mass destruction against us.

On September 11, 2001, it was our commercial airline industry.

Ever since then, it has been our commercial media industry.

So if you’re among the advertisers still supporting X -- or to a lesser extent Meta -- I’m asking you to step up and do what you can to keep an unregulated part of the media industry from being used as a weapon of mass destruction in a modern-day holocaust.

Because if you don't, this time it will have been funded by you.