Part IV -- Conclusion
Early in my tenure-track residency at West Chester University, my office computer was hacked by some anonymous Zionist source waging cyberwar against the free speech of those supporting the Palestinians. The way they did this was by rerouting several of my opinion pieces to literally thousands of random e-mail addresses. I called in the university IT folks and got the problem fixed within a few days.
In the interim, it was a pretty interesting experience. On the one hand, it was potentially free advertising for my point of view -- the hackers seemed not to have grasped this potential. On the other, it taught me the probability was high that the random recipients would see this as an annoying intrusion into their attention zone, where the Palestinian-Israeli struggle was seen as irrelevant. A common reply was, "Please stop sending me these e-mails. I don't know anything about this and I don't care."
And there we have it. Ignorance beyond one's figurative 30 square miles is the default position. That opens most of us to all kinds of manipulation. Throw in an obsession with Bible stories and, as regards to Palestine/Israel, one's vulnerability goes up. The alleged ancient "holiness" of the place neutralizes all of present Israel's ongoing sins.
Thus, ignorance in general, and ignorance of the Palestinian situation in particular, can be exploited to the benefit of racism and oppression. Demi Lovato is a recent example of this fact. When it comes to "Christian Tourism," let the buyer beware.
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