It happened again yesterday, this time in Boulder, with peaceful Jewish demonstrators set ablaze with a makeshift flamethrower by a vicious antisemite named Mohamed Sabry Soliman.
But Jews are somehow modern Nazis? Yeah, right.
PJ Media’s own Sarah Anderson has all the details, so I won’t repeat them here. But there are still a few things we need to talk about — even while Soliman’s victims remain hospitalized.
As many others pointed out, perhaps the most worrisome thing about Sunday’s violence is that it was not met with immediate retaliatory violence — what decent and reasonable people call “justice.” It hardly seems right that Soliman wasn’t riddled with bullets from prepared and trained civilians before the last syllable of “Free Palestine” erupted from his lungs.
Then again, this is Boulder, where “decent and reasonable” are in dangerously short supply. Literally.
It’s one thing for someone like Soliman to attack two older Jews — one a Holocaust survivor. But what if he’d met the Bear Jew instead?
I recently rewatched Quentin Tarantino’s World War II fairy-tale/action/grindhouse flick, “Inglourious Basterds,” co-starring Eli Roth as Staff Sgt. Donny Donowitz, aka the Bear Jew. Set in Occupied France, a ragtag team of Jewish-American soldiers makes its way through Paris to assassinate a group of Nazi leaders — including Hitler himself. Donowitz’s claim to fame is smashing Nazi skulls with a baseball bat.
It’s satisfying stuff, if you’re into dead Nazis. Personally, I take the Indiana Jones approach: “Nazis. I hate these guys.”
And Another Thing: “Inglourious Basterds” was Tarantino’s first — but not only — historical rewrite. The other was “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” in which a fading film star (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his bodyguard (Brad Pitt) save a pregnant Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) from the Manson family. That they kill off the murderous Manson family members in imaginatively gruesome ways just makes the bloody fairy-tale ending that much more satisfying. “Inglourious Basterds” entertained me, but “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” was the first Tarantino flick that moved me.
America, however, is not Occupied France. A real-world protest is not a set piece in a Hollywood revenge fantasy. But Americans — particularly American Jews — must channel the Bear Jew’s unapologetic readiness to meet deadly evil with necessary force.
“Jews need to arm up,” Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett warned today. “Especially for public gatherings. Become a hard target.”
Not just arm up — and not just Jews. As my friend and Townhall colleague Kurt Schlichter keeps reminding people, citizenship comes with the responsibility to defend your property, yourself, your family, your neighbors, and your Constitution. Arm yourself but also get trained, and keep that training sharp with regular trips to the range (I’ve been negligent lately on that score; I’ll do better) and training aids like the Mantis Laser Academy kit.
“Remember when George Bush said we have to fight them over there or else we’ll end up fighting them over here?” former GOP operative Logan Dobson asked earlier today. “He was right, but I don’t think he anticipated we’d invite them in.”
Well, they’re here. What are we going to do about it?
Become the Bear Jew.
Recommended: Russia’s Nuclear Bomber Force Just Took a Yuge Hit
