Muslims are enraged and Delta Airlines is in full disaster-control mode after its official X account made a commonsensical but politically incorrect statement about how one might feel about seeing a flight attendant wearing a Palestine flag pin. The controversy started when two Delta flight attendants were spotted wearing the pins on separate flights in violation of company policy, but indignation over the politicization of yet another public space quickly gave way to outrage over alleged “bigotry.” Nowadays, noticing the obvious can get you in big, big trouble.
NBC News reported Thursday that Delta’s apology came “after its X account sympathized with a post that incorrectly said two flight attendants with Palestinian flag pins were wearing ‘Hamas badges.’” Incorrectly? Well, that all depends on your definition of what constitutes a “Hamas badge.”
Since 2001 we take our shoes off in every airport because a terrorist attack in US soil. Now imagine getting into a @Delta flight and seeing workers with Hamas badges in the air. What do you do ? pic.twitter.com/xBbQllq2SM
— i like teslas (@iliketeslas) July 10, 2024
The controversy started on Wednesday when an X user wrote the above post. The response from Delta’s (former!) X wonk was unusually and refreshingly ingenuous: “I hear you as I’d be terrified as well, personally. Our employees reflect our culture and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed.” This response, however, angered the ever-irritable gods of multiculturalism and diversity and so was quickly taken down.
In its place, predictably, was a shame-faced self-incrimination that Delta can only hope will satisfy the cultural revolutionaries nipping at its heels. The airline announced that it “removed a mistakenly posted comment on X Wednesday because it was not in line with our values and our mission to connect the world. The team member responsible for the post has been counseled and no longer supports Delta’s social channels. We apologize for this error.”
Counseled! The poor devil. Who knows what mind-numbing mélange of Marxist/jihadi agitprop he was forced to endure, and even after getting his mind right, he still lost his X gig and possibly his job altogether.
And for what? Delta calls it an “error,” and as far as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is concerned, it’s much worse. CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell fumed, “Whether this racist post on Delta’s X account was approved or unauthorized, Delta must apologize and take steps to educate its employees about this type of dangerous anti-Palestinian racism. Bigotry against Palestinian-Americans is absolutely out of control in workplaces and at schools — and it must stop.” Incidentally, NBC quoted this but did not bother to inform its readers about CAIR’s Hamas ties.
Anyway, here we go. Racism. Bigotry. But is that really what was happening here? NBC informs that “the Palestinian flag has become a symbol of solidarity for the suffering of the Palestinian people in the Israel-Hamas war” and uncritically repeats casualty figures from the Gaza Health Ministry without mentioning that it’s controlled by Hamas.
Nor does it mention that the Palestine flag itself is an indication of the fact that the Palestinians are a newly-minted ethnicity — invented, in fact, by the KGB and Yasir Arafat in the 1960s to be a weapon against Israel. Before it was the flag of Palestine, the flag was the banner of the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz, which was established in 1916 and absorbed into Saudi Arabia in 1925. The Hejaz, kids, is in Arabia — not “Palestine.” The designer of the flag was not a Palestinian, as there were no Palestinians as such in those days, but an English Colonel named Mark Sykes.
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Now that Sykes’ handiwork is the flag of the nonexistent nation of Palestine, one who chooses to wear it is making a specific and definite political statement. Someone committed to the cause enough to wear a Palestine flag pin is not just expressing pride in this fictional nation but also solidarity with the Palestinians in their war against Israel, which, it should be remembered, they started. Not only did they start it, but it continues because of them since Hamas refuses to release the hostages it is still holding from among those it took on Oct. 7, 2023.
Also, Palestinians in Gaza overwhelmingly support Hamas. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported last March that according to a recent survey, “seventy-one percent of all Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on October 7 — up 14 points among Gazans and down 11 points among West Bank Palestinians compared to three months ago. Fifty-nine percent of all Palestinians thought Hamas should rule Gaza, and 70 percent were satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the war.”
In light of all that, can a pin of the flag that has been repurposed as the Palestine flag be reasonably called a “Hamas badge”? Only if one is willing to acknowledge reality.
Delta should have reprimanded the flight attendants for violating company uniform guidelines and left it at that. Capitulating to the CAIR mob only encourages more such intimidation.
