Every genocide begins with one simple lie: They had it coming

Imagine sitting down for dinner in the house you inherited from your great-grandfather. Suddenly, men burst through the door. While two of them start dragging your wife toward a bedroom, a third points a gun at your child and screams something about your ancestor stealing the house from his ancestor. In this situation, the appropriate response does not involve rushing to the courthouse to examine title records or calling an attorney to argue your case. The man with the gun is full of rage and half-truths. There can be no reasoning with him.

Imagine that at a subsequent trial, a prosecutor cross-examines you after you plead your case to the jury. Why didn’t you listen to his complaints? Don’t you see that he had a point about how your great-grandfather acquired the house illegitimately? How can you have a right to defend yourself if you never had the right to occupy the house in the first place?

Every genocide begins with one simple lie: They had it coming. The Tutsis had it coming in Rwanda. The Kulaks had it coming in Soviet Russia. The Armenians had it coming in Turkey. And time after time, the Jews are said to have it coming in whatever country they find themselves. They all have some historical justification. Once you start arguing over whose great-grandfather was more virtuous, you’ve already fallen into the trap. Everyone involved is dead, and no lie or truth can be conclusively established once hate and violence erupt.

The hate comes in sheep's clothing. It isn't hate. It’s history. We’re so often told that it’s impossible to teach about historic injustices without arousing a thirst for justice in the descendants of the victims. Really, the legacy of injustice lives through the inferior circumstances of the victims.

Nonsense. We do it all the time. If schools can teach about the Holocaust without inspiring violence against Germans, then history’s injustices can and must be taught without scapegoating people who were not yet born at the time. Every large multiethnic empire has struggled with calls for “justice” between and among ethnic groups. We’re at a critical fork in the road. Do we turn left toward tribal violence or right toward racial equality?

This toxic movement must be delegitimized now before the violence spreads to engulf all “colonizers” and people of “privilege.”

Israel, for all its faults, incorporates a large Muslim minority within its citizenry. While its neighbors have expelled, killed, or harassed Jews outside Israel, to the point that few still live in any Arab country, Israeli Jews live peacefully with 1.7 million Israeli Muslims.

When we watch throngs of Hamas sympathizers chant “from the river to the sea,” we should understand exactly what the catchy slogan really means: They have it coming.

Arguing with these people is totally fruitless. They believe Israel gained its land illegitimately. Any measure taken to expel the trespassing Jews, no matter how grotesque, will not turn social justice warriors away from their cause. Any act of self-defense by Israel, no matter how restrained, will be treated as an extension of the original victimization. Arguing history with these maniacs is a fool's errand.

Hamas is but one head of the hydra. Every movement that seeks collective punishment for historical “injustice” is just another germinating genocide. Equality absolutism is the only defense against the evil and violent “equity” movement that continues to drag us back to tribal violence. We should stamp out any effort to normalize ethnic scapegoating. History is beside the point. Teaching victim-oppressor narratives stokes resentment and paves the road to disaster.

Euphemisms like “racial justice" or “social justice” are synonymous with “they have it coming.” We need to vigorously object to the casual use of terms like “colonizer” or “privilege,” when uttered to delegitimize a scapegoat race or ethnicity. We should end official government policies that justify discrimination based on “historical oppression.” It can take decades of grooming and indoctrination to build up violence-inducing resentment. Once the violence starts, it’s too late. The time to stop racial scapegoating is during the social justice “training” session.

This toxic movement must be delegitimized now before the violence spreads to engulf all “colonizers” and people of “privilege.” It isn’t about winning some obscure argument about history. It’s about the right of a family to finish their dinner without being murdered for some imagined sin of their long-dead great-grandparents.