Ferguson and Gaza's wannabe

Over in the Middle East, the region is ablaze. In the Holy Land, millions of people have been chased by rocket fire from their homes into shelters. Scores of soldiers have been killed, r"l, at the hands of crazed terrorists. Hamas has brought upon its own people in Gaza thousands of deaths and widespread destruction.

Here in America the Comfortable, meanwhile, people who don't appreciate the blessings of security and tranquility this country bestows have turned the unfortunate police shooting of a young black man under unclear circumstances into Gaza's second coming. In a JTA piece titled "In Ferguson, Echoes of Middle East?", reporter Talia Lavin writes:

A summer of global turmoil has culminated in nightmarish scenes from Ferguson, Mo.,…. For some, scenes of protesters attacked with tear gas and smoke bombs evoked another struggle: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Widespread concerns about the militarization of police … were echoed by pro-Palestinian Twitter users, who made direct comparisons between treatment of Ferguson protesters by police and treatment of Palestinians by the Israel Defense Forces…. In an interconnected world, in which outbreaks of violence continents away from each other unfold on our screens simultaneously, drawing parallels and patterns seems inevitable.

No, Ms. Lavin, it's not inevitable, it's downright silly. It's something that only reporters desperate to file a story on deadline would even entertain. Go to anywhere that the afore-mentioned "global turmoil" is unfolding - Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine - and try convincing the locals that the "nightmarish" scenes of … tear gas and smoke bombs and really scary police gear have anything at all in common with what they've been experiencing -- and good luck with that.

To be sure, there are parallels between Gaza and Ferguson, but not the ones intended by Ms. Lavin or the pro-Palestinian Twitterers she takes so seriously.

There's the fact that the violence in Gaza and the unrest in Ferguson are both contrivances, stemming from the desire to deny and distract from uncomfortable facts about a society's systemic problems, choosing violence and propaganda over the hard work needed to address them.

Whether it's the Palestinian terrorist leaders or the racial hucksters acting as self-appointed spokesmen of the black community, whether it's the torching of the greenhouses the Israelis left behind upon evacuating Gaza or keeping multiple generations on the welfare dole, whether it's perpetual "refugee" camps or boarded-up housing projects, the modus operandus is the same.

For their own selfish purposes, these mis-leaders keep their people in perpetual misery, denying the underlying reasons and shifting the blame for their community's dissolution. They destroy opportunity and breed decades-long resentment, channeling their constituents' rage into a murderous frenzy in Gaza' case, and into pointless unrest and looting in urban rioting here.

There's the parallel of the media acting as willing dupes, trampling all over the freedom of the press they supposedly hold dear.

In Gaza, this manifests in the curious inability to find any publishable photos of Hamas terrorists or to report that Shifa Hospital sat atop terrorist headquarters.

In Ferguson, it shows in media outrage -- CNN's Wolf Blitzer called it a "smear" -- over the release of a video that caught police shooting victim Michael Brown strong-arming a convenience store clerk for a box of cigarillos just minutes before his death, thus puncturing the media depiction of the 6'4," 292 lb. Brown as a supposed "gentle giant."

Finally, there's the parallel that both situations have brought out Jews who have protesteth far too much for others and far too little for their own.

In the case of Gaza, those like Jewish Voices for Peace, who are to J Street's left, if that's imaginable; in Ferguson, those like the nonagenarian Hedy Epstein, who made headlines by getting arrested thee and is -- surprise! -- an inveterate pro-Palestinian protestor, too.

An underdog, it seems, is a liberal Jew's best friend --- so long as the dog isn't her own.

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Eytan Kobre is an attorney practicing in Brooklyn, New York. He studied at the Yeshiva of Staten Island and Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah. A graduate of the Fordham University School of Law, he previously practiced law with two Manhattan firms and served for several years as associate general counsel at Agudath Israel of America. He is an editor at Mishpacha magazine, where this first appeared.