Exterminate all the brutes.

I'm baaaack. And boy, do we have a lot to discuss.

Twelve days, 4500 miles, lots of friends along the way, three new bucket list visits, music,... But I'm glad to be home. The Disco Inferno isn't nearly as much fun (though much more peaceful) without grommets.

We have a lot to discuss. But I’m still unpacking and getting four groms settled into three different schools. More on all of the domestic front later, but for right now, a few trip photos.

As much as I need to get some things done around here, there has been a recent outrage that is so egregious that it needs discussing right now: the execution of six Jewish hostages by Hamas in Rafa. There is simply no place for this in the modern world. And those who would do or excuse such things are simply barbarians (even if they have Ivy League credentials).

I’ve had as much as I’m going to take of the false “both sides” narrative from the woke and the stupid about all of this. “There are two sides to every story” is an excuse for a lot of things, but keen intellect and the willingness to get to the bottom of difficult issues are rarely among them. Sometimes there are, indeed, two sides to a story; sometimes there are a half dozen. But sometimes there is really only one—except for the 2 + 2 = 5 crowd (yes, this is a real thing).

From October 7 until today, Hamas and their sponsors in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East have behaved like barbarians from a millennium or two ago, not like members of a modern, civilized world. There is no excuse for what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. None. And while most of the world sees Hamas and their supporters for what they are, woke progressives and other knuckleheads of their ilk have become allies with those who would replace a progressive, tolerant, modern country (a veritable cornucopia of all of the values the woke espouse) with a 14th-century caliphate.

Even in my small mountain town here in the West, we recently had a loopy pro-Palestine demonstration. It was comical. The handful of marchers were almost entirely from the alternative lifestyles community. Is there a limit these days on public displays of ignorance?

Yeah, I know, that was plumb silly.

Nonetheless, this is America, where you have the right to be wrong. There is, additionally, absolutely nothing wrong with either peaceful protest or alternative lifestyles. Hell, as a senior citizen with four young kids in the house, I lead an alternative lifestyle. So on that account, I wish you peace.

The problem is the rank dumbassery involved in this particular population’s woke embrace of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine dogma. Israel is a modern society in which alternative lifestyles are at the very least tolerated and often welcomed. In Palestine, these same lifestyles are not only not tolerated but illegal. In one place, you’d be accepted and left alone; in the other, you’d be thrown from the nearest tall rooftop. It’s matter vs. antimatter. There’s only a certain amount of incredulous suspension of disbelief I can tolerate in my old age.

This reminds me of my last few years in higher education, when my university decided to admit thousands of middle-eastern students with questionable academic and immigration credentials on full-ride scholarships paid for by their governments. This cohort had swarmed, like locusts, on small universities all over the country, wearing out their welcome everywhere. After being shown the door at regional universities in two surrounding states, their next stop was Idaho.

I always viewed college students as human beings first and then students. Those kids sitting in your classes are someone’s children. I always tried to extend every courtesy to them that I would appreciate being extended to my own children. So my first reaction to the bedlam that erupted when thousands of young men, set temporarily free from among the most restrictive societies on the planet (with lots of spending money), descended on my small mountain town was that we needed to have a come-to-Allah orientation with them. They needed to understand that things work differently here. Here, you must respect women in general and your women teachers in particular. You are expected to do your own school work. You are expected to fill out rental contracts accurately and honestly. And bribing your way out of your difficulties doesn’t cut it here (at least it’s not supposed to).

You may read the longer version of this here. But for now, suffice it to say that no one in Pocatello benefited from this arrangement except for the university administration, who treated these students like ATMs, the local strip club, and anyone who had a Ford Mustang for sale.

The thing that really irked me about all of this was the endless excusing of poor (and illegal) behavior in the name of “tolerance"—a courtesy that I am quite sure would not be extended were the shoe on the other foot. After being mentioned in a page one NYT piece as a faculty member who wasn’t having any of it, I was widely slagged as an anti-Muslim bigot. The fact of the matter is that I don’t give a hoot about Muslims—their religion is no more or less ridiculous than any other, IMO. What I care about is behavior. And when yours is inexcusable, I’m not going to tie myself in knots trying to figure out a way to excuse it.

The new twists in the defense of the indefensible this time around are the severity of the retro 14th-century behavior (kidnapping, murder, and violence vs. academic dishonesty, theft, and violating women’s rights) and relieving the Palestinians of any responsibility for war, murder, and violence as part of the struggle against colonialism. The former indicates an ignorance of any sense that scale matters in human affairs, the latter an ignorance of history. Either way, it’s dumbassery, and I’m having none of it.

The Biden administration’s approach to all of this has been dreadful, but that’s for another column. Right now, in the brief time that I have today, I just want to express my solidarity with Israel (for more on my feelings on this subject, check this out). So I say this to my Jewish readers and friends: despite the idiotic protests you see on some college campuses, I’m reasonably sure that most Americans are with you just like I am. Is Israel a perfect country? Of course not. Is the situation complex? The real world always is. But is Israel orders of magnitude better than the alternative? I sure think so. I’ll take the 21st century over the 14th all of the time.

And if push comes to shove, I’m all for solving the problem once and for all. Get with the 21st century, or meet Kurtz.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.