Do students who loudly blame Israel for Hamas’s brutality deserve to be indignant when they are publicly named and shamed? Or when they lose job prospects? Should adults who rip down posters of Israeli hostages enjoy immunity from consequences? No. Plain and simple. But these nasty individuals use a familiar move: they accept no responsibility for their actions but instead, lob accusations at those who fairly respond to their lousy behavior. They claim they are being “doxxed.” They seek institutional protection and public sympathy instead of the pushback they deserve.
A lot of their nonsense hinges on the concept called “doxxing,” which is the deliberate publication of private information such as the victim’s home address or personal phone number. This does not happen to the anti-Israel militants in the US, but they want you to think it does.
The mob’s narrative goes like this: if you publicly shame signatories of anti-Israel pronouncements – the kind blaming Israel and “only Israel” for Hamas’s psychotic violence – you are “doxxing” them. If you film anti-Israel militants stripping posters of kidnapped Israeli children from streetlamps, you are “doxxing” them.
I am intimately familiar with this subject. Back in 2006, I founded what became probably the first large privacy-focused Internet company. I have written books about digital privacy, including a bestseller, and I have taught courses at Harvard on the topic. I have opposed doxxing since before nearly anyone had ever heard the word. But publicizing the names and acts of thugs is not doxxing.
First, let’s be clear: none of these activities constitutes “doxxing.” Doxxing is not only nearly always unethical, it is also often civilly actionable and can be criminal. By contrast, amplifying the identity of a signatory to a public letter or filming a poster destroyer on the street may be distasteful to some, but it is not doxxing.
Anti-Israel activists want to be warriors and victims at the same time
The anti-Israel horde wants you to think that naming and filming are improper invasions of their privacy. They seek two different types of status simultaneously: they want to be known in their own circles as glorious warriors of conscience but also, as soon as they are found out by the greater public, they want to be seen as fragile victims of bullying. They want to spit bile at Israel but cower as victims when a fair-minded public sees who they are.
Most of all, they really don’t want to lose their job prospects.
Israel-haters pretend that amplifying even just their names and deeds is some kind of “violence” that threatens their lives and livelihoods. Their goal is to invoke law enforcement and institutional authority to rescue and protect them from the consequences of their vicious virtue signaling.
Can you imagine that any of these anti-Israel goons were concerned when birdwatcher Christian Cooper filmed a “Karen” accosting him in Central Park back in 2020? No, of course not. Never mind that the lady lost her job when the film went viral. According to their likely logic, she probably had it coming.
But anti-Israel militants will brook no blowback for themselves. They want the lusty enjoyment of defacing posters of child hostages and of loudly blaming Israel for all Palestinian ills without receiving anything more than a congratulatory slap on the back.
And they are really afraid of losing job prospects.
That is an understandable instinct. Many of us would rightly agree that individuals, especially university students, who might have signed a repulsively one-sided anti-Israel letter in haste, should have the chance to review their opinions and recant their vitriol. Chalk one up to learning. They should then keep their employment opportunities.
On the other hand, unrepentant commitment to such opinions deserves the reaction it gets. It is entirely reasonable for an employer to have access to the public behavior of a person who blames Israel exclusively for Hamas’s attack, or who defaces posters of kidnapping victims, or who offers up lunatic defenses like “the alleged rapes and murders of Israelis did not actually happen.”
It is also entirely reasonable for an employer to conclude that such a person lacks the critical thinking skills, operating intellect, empathy, or judgment to hold any job at all.
Most Americans generally disfavor not only doxxing but public shaming. Most Americans also support second chances for people who reconsider their views after their blood has ceased to boil.
But if you persistently refuse to think critically, or if you simply can’t, you should be ready to lose opportunities that are properly awarded to someone more capable than yourself. Your weak appeal to privacy deserves no power here.
The writer is a venture capital investor.