You ever fall down a comment section rabbit hole so deep you forget what the original article was even about? Yeah. That was my Tuesday.
The spark was an op-ed in Haaretz. Some writer named Shai Grunberg, dropping a piece titled "This Yom Kippur, There Will Be No Forgiveness for Israel's Sins in Gaza" right on September 30th. The timing, you gotta admit, has a certain theatrical flair. The piece hits all the notes you’d expect: "mass deportation," a million people pushed south, a "mass famine" declared up north. Heavy stuff, designed to provoke.
And boy, did it provoke.
But the article itself isn't the story. It never is. The real story, the real unfiltered id of the internet, is always in the comments. And this one was a masterclass in digital holy war.
Your Holy Book is Just Ammo Now
Everyone's a Theologian Now ###
I swear, you could post a cat video online and within ten comments someone would be arguing about its implications on post-millennial eschatology. Here, it happened instantly. The article is about a 2025 humanitarian crisis, and the response is to crack open the Talmud.
One guy starts recommending works by Israel Shahak and an organization called Daat Emet to understand what Halacha—that’s Judaic law, for the uninitiated—says about non-Jews. Another commenter quotes an Orthodox group I've never heard of, "True Torah Jews," basically saying the state of Israel ain't got nothing to do with them or their religion.
It’s a bad look. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—it's a full-blown theological cage match where people are cherry-picking ancient texts to justify a modern political position. It’s the ultimate "my dad can beat up your dad," except dad is God.
You see this everywhere online. I was trying to buy a new coffee maker the other day, and the reviews section had devolved into a multi-thousand-word debate on the ethics of sourcing beans from non-unionized farms in South America. I just wanted to know if the frother worked well. They’re digging through ancient texts to score points in a 2025 flame war, and I just...
And offcourse, it’s not a one-sided game. Someone was quick to point out that the Greek Orthodox Church’s Holy Thursday service has a little ditty about asking God to "repay the Jews." So, congratulations everyone, your sacred texts have some ugly stuff in them. Welcome to the history of organized religion. Can we talk about the million displaced people now? Apparently not.
Intellectualizing a Horror Show
The Expert Class Logs On ###
When the amateur theologians get tired, the amateur international law experts tap in.
One commenter, Dianelos Georgoudis, comes in hot, citing a genocide specialist named Raz Segal who supposedly called this a "textbook case of genocide" just five days in. Five. Days. Then he drops the ICJ ruling, claiming they "unanimously agreed" with South Africa's allegations. It's all about deploying the right names, the right acronyms. It’s not about truth; it’s about winning the argument with superior Google-fu.
You’ve got one side waving around B'tselem reports and the other side doing… well, whatever the other side does. And in the middle of it all, you have the actual crisis, which gets buried under layers of performative intellectualism.
Are we really supposed to believe that these comment-section warriors are changing minds? Or is this just a way for them to feel like they’re participating in history from the safety of their ergonomic desk chairs?
Then again, who am I to talk? I get paid to have opinions about other people’s opinions. Maybe I’m the crazy one for thinking any of this should make sense.
The whole thing reminds me of those traditional Orthodox morning prayers the fact sheet mentioned, where men thank God for not being made a "goy" or a woman. It’s ancient, tribal, "us vs. them" thinking. And while some groups, like the Reconstructionists, have tried to evolve past that—ditching the whole "chosen people" thing—that old programming runs deep. It seems to be the default setting for humanity, and the internet just cranks the volume to eleven.
We’re all just shouting our team’s prayers into the void, hoping our God is listening and the other guy’s isn’t.
It's All Just Noise ###
Let's be real. None of this matters. Not the comment section debates, not the quoting of obscure anti-Zionist rabbis, not the dueling historical grievances. It’s all just noise. It’s a bunch of people, myself included, processing a horror show by turning it into an intellectual exercise, a debate club. While we argue about whether it’s a “textbook case” or what some prayer from the 12th century really means, a million people are being pushed out of their homes. They don't care about our hot takes. Our arguments don't feed them or shelter them. It’s just us, screaming into the digital wind to convince ourselves we’re on the right side of history.
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