We use different methods to analyze whether a person, cause, or organization is worthy of our support, friendship, or association.

“The company they keep” test is a good one that can readily provide a gut-level evaluation of a person or group.

We do this all the time; we judge people by who they make common cause with. Probably your parents took a keen interest in your friends at school or later love interests: Who is my kid hanging out with, crushing on? As the saying goes: “Birds of a feather…”

As a broad heuristic, it is effective both in our personal lives and in politics. Consider Trump: a known narcissist, a conman on a galactic scale. His cabinet and social circle were replete with weirdos, crooks, and crackpots: extremists and disreputables arrived with every new appointment of his administration. Sane, moral Republicans would lament Trump’s people: “Yep, a Trump buddy, that checks out.”

This analysis also works on a national scale. You can judge large groups, countries even, by the company they keep.

Consider the allies of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine: Iran, North Korea, Eritrea, Syria. It is a who’s who of gangsterlands, hard dictatorships, and terrorism sponsors: the worst countries on earth headed by the most evil men. Friends of Palestine, all, by the way.

So who comprise the rest of the company the Palestinian movement keeps? Internationally, there are the states I mentioned above plus also-rans, the mini-mes of international hooliganism like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba.

Some non-failed Arab/Islamic countries (Morocco, Malaysia) vote pro-Palestine, but there the context is less about Palestine, for they do nothing for Palestine except shout; their motivation is Islamic or Arab solidarity, mainly because after Islam, there is no other area of unity between them but Palestine.

Political unity may be what unites the Arab world against Israel, but the heavy lifting was done way before 1948 and comprises 1300+ years of Islamic thought about the Jews.

Before 1948, the Islamosphere was totally primed to hate Israel and Jews like the devil: in rural villages in Egypt, some people still believe Jews have horns and tails.

The anti-Semitism of the Koran, Hadith, and Suras is the intellectual architecture of anti-Israel fanaticism. And don’t let some bearded anti-colonial indigenous lesbian dance professor tell you it is about “poverty” or “racism.” Ever. It never is.

Here, Islam connects with the horseshoe theory of political extremism with the “ends” of the horseshoe meeting where the bonkers left and ratbag neo-Nazis connect: anti-Semitism. All friends of Palestine.

Outside the Islamosphere, Palestine is recognized by many Third World states, Palestinian passports valid for travel to them, Palestinian embassies grace their capitals.

Just about every non-Arab/Muslim “ally” is not part of the western alliance; almost none are democracies, most are poor. These, to put no fine point on it, are the losers of the international community. You’ll find many of their citizens on leaky boats to countries that don’t recognize “Palestine”.

At a smaller scale in the US, we have the most craven of the unions, nests of hilariously misinformed “degrowth” communists, and the types of environmentalists with bugs in their beards who drag down the average IQ of leftists.

Other Palestine allies include a contingent of blue-haired genderwang fanatics whose moral calisthenics have them (not even ironically or comically!) genuinely standing with banners reading Queers for Palestine. Hamas has a roof party plan for them, and this month their friends the Houthis are publicly executing 13 men for homosexuality: all parody is dead in the face of this absurdity.

Then Palestine has its more telegenic backers: pretty teen random Instagram influencers, obviously famous for their deep knowledge of history, ethics, and philosophy. Also in entertainment, we see the most idiotic of Hollywood has-beens, starlets who were sexy when VCRs were a new thing: “Old whores don’t smile a lot.” – Hunter S. Thompson.

Mobs in downtowns throughout the west routinely block traffic, disrupt airports, burn American flags, deface statues, and engage in frequent random violence. Yea “resistance”.

Further, without going into the damage pro-terrorism BLM has caused the black community via the “Ferguson Effect”, the recent alliance between old school race grifters like Cornel West, Al Sharpton, and (felon) Angela Davies and Palestine is open and notorious. But puzzling: do they understand the Arab world’s extensive record of African slavery and its resistance to UK/US/France’s outlawing of it?

Do they have any idea how badly black people are treated in the Arab Islamosphere today? Even Al Jazeera has various documentaries about the treatment of Africans in, say, Iraq and Tunisia.

Do they know that in Arabic the word for black people is “abd”, “slave”? That slavery of black Africans still unofficially exists in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania? That it was only outlawed in much of the Arab world more recently than the founding of Israel?

The shady, amoral, or criminal parties listed above are friends of Palestine, but many are also explicit backers of Hamas – which boggles the mind of this New Yorker who was here for 9/11 and previously worked in the WTC.

To celebrate Hamas and UNRWA with its junior jihad for kids curricula and hospital basement server room is beyond bizarre.

Have they no understanding of Hamas’ mission, goals, and founding principles? I have a degree in Middle East politics; I could write a long article about the theological and political differences between Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and the Taliban. There are tiny details, but for a “company they keep” analysis, they’re minutia, irrelevant.

I could also write about the distance between Hamas’ goals and the Palestinian people’s actual aspirations by their votes, deeds, and unceasing words: but again, there’s almost no daylight between them. Hamas does represent.

Polls in the Arab world almost uniformly support Oct. 7th above the 80% level; amongst Palestinians, it is higher.

Dissenters prefer the murderous Islamic Jihad.

Allies of Palestine are either endorsing or ignoring decades of terrorism, hostage-taking, civilian massacres, air piracy, and the kind of theocratic intolerance that would never allow their purple-haired narcissism. Israel uses its weaponry to protect civilians, Israeli and Palestinian. Palestine uses its own human shield citizens to protect its weapons and tunnels. There’s a deep moral asymmetry here.

So if you’re at that rally, waving that Arab Revolt inspired flag (designed by an Englishman, Sir Mark Sykes, btw), chanting the river/sea chant with its command for a total pogrom in Israel…. think long and hard about the company you’re currently keeping.