WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home

When gray-haired white liberals take to America's streets for "No Kings" protests, the only danger they're exposing themselves to is ridicule.

But what happens when progressive protesters head to a foreign war zone?

Last weekend, the "Global March to Gaza" found out.

Thousands flocked from wealthy European countries like Ireland and Luxembourg, joined by activists from the developing world as well.

They planned to get into Gaza through Egypt, evading Israel's blockade — but it was the Egyptians who turned the marchers away.

It turns out the locals didn't take kindly to strangers involving themselves in the high-stakes politics of the neighborhood.

Egyptian authorities confiscated passports and phones, arrested some marchers and gave them all the chilliest of receptions in the blazing desert heat.

Nor were police the only ones giving the wealthy white would-be saviors of Palestine a hard time: throngs of ordinary Egyptians shouted abuse and tussled with the clueless do-gooders.

In Gaza, the marchers might have far faced worse.

A similar pro-Palestine effort is in dire trouble hundreds of miles away: a thousand protesters from North Africa are held up in Libya, where the France 24 news network reports they have "no access to food, water or medicine and communications severely disrupted" and organizers say they're under "systemic siege."

Those activists hail from places like Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia — now imagine the pale faces from the "No Kings" crowd in that situation.

Egypt might as well be Madison, Wisconsin, by comparison, yet Gaza makes even Libya seem serene.

Getting packed onto buses and deported from Egypt is the kindest thing that could have happened to European leftists trying to tour a war zone.

Protests are inane enough in the West, but when Antifa isn't around and they don't devolve into riots against law enforcement, they're a safe enough recreation for liberals who want to imagine they're "doing something."

Yet outside the comfortable confines of the Western world that protesters so often denounce as intolerably unjust, pastimes like theirs can and do get people killed.

Perhaps back home in Luxembourg a few of Gaza's self-appointed paladins will reflect on how lucky they are?

Maybe instead of protesting against immigration restrictions next time, they'll give thought to making sure Europe doesn't become more like troubled North Africa?

Don't bet on it.

It's a basic trait of the Western progressive that he (or she, or whatever the pronoun) believes both that the West is the guiltiest, most racist, most imperialistic part of the world and also that Westerners like him (or her, etc.) understand exactly what the rest of the world needs and are just the ones to deliver it.

Western progressive moralizing is the most imperialist thing of all today, especially when presenting itself as anti-imperialist or "anti-colonial."

And when people like the Egyptians, who actually know a thing or two about experiencing imperialism — and at times perpetrating it, too — tell Europe's or America's wannabe white messiahs they aren't welcome, how do the protesters react?

Instead of singing a merry "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" while the bus hauls them away to be deported, they can be heard in a video shared on X chanting, "F—k you, Israel! F—k you, Egypt!"

How dare the Egyptians deport such well-meaning foreign interlopers?

It's as if they think they get to set the rules in their country, no matter how enlightened Europeans feel about it.

The Egyptians have the best of reasons not to want the West's most naive leftists marching through their territory on their way to Gaza.

Egypt can hardly afford to make an enemy out of Israel at a time when Israel is dealing harshly with enemies.

And Egypt can't take in an influx of Gazans without making Gaza's problems, including Hamas, its own.

But liberal meddling knows no borders, and progressives who want the world's population to come to the United States and Europe also want the world's governments to cater to their own WEIRD values: that is, "Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic."

The WEIRDos are wrong when they're out on the streets of America's cities.

And they're dead wrong when they interfere in foreign crises they don't understand — though, thanks to the Egyptian authorities they now hate, at least this lot isn't simply dead.

"No Kings" is an old-fashioned message; today what we need is no more royally entitled protesters.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 06/10/25: American Intifada
• 06/04/25: DEI: The Dems' Concrete Shoes
• 05/27/25: Trump, Harvard, and the Brain-Drain Myth
• 05/20/25: China's Power Is a Virus
• 05/13/25: How this GOP Governor's Miracle Became a Curse
• 04/15/25: Is UnitedHealthcare CEO's murderer the Left's Donald Trump?
• 04/01/25: Lawfare Isn't Beaten -- In France or America
• 03/25/25: Will Trump Turn Nationalism Against America?
• 03/18/25: The Dems' Civil War
• 03/11/25: Can Donald Trump Win a Trade War?
• 03/04/25: Europe's Decline Was a Choice
• 02/25/25: How Trump Makes Europe Stronger
• 02/20/25: Tax-payers funding a sham of democracy
• 02/11/25: What Kind of a Populist Is Elon Musk?
• 02/03/25: Can Trump Win Trade Wars Before They Start?
• 01/21/25: Trump Inaugurates a New Era
• 01/14/25: Dems Aren't Democracy's Party
• 01/07/25: Donald Trump's Worldwide Election
• 12/31/24: Harmless self-deception?
• 12/17/24: Communism thriving, including HERE
• 12/10/24: Birthright Citizenship Is a Breach in the Border
• 12/03/24: Identity Politics, Not Biden, Cost Dems the Election
• 11/19/24: Why Dems Are Losing Tomorrow's Elections Today
• 11/12/24: Dems Are at a Dead End, Unless They Learn From Trump
• 10/29/24: Harris Targets Married Women
• 10/22/24: Vibes Turn Bad for Kamala Harris
• 10/15/24: Why Veterans Are Voting for Trump
• 10/08/24: How Donald Trump Can Win the Popular Vote
• 10/01/24: Iran Targets America's Elections -- and Trump
• 09/24/24: Trump's Would-Be Assassin's Explanation
• 09/17/24: When Character Assassination Becomes the Real Thing
• 09/10/24: Kamala Harris Runs Like a Republican -- and Misleads
• 09/04/24: Where Trump Is Moderate -- While Kam Is Maximalist
• 08/27/24: Donald Trump Is Reagan's Heir
• 08/20/24: Will Voters Settle for Joe Biden's Wing(wo)man?
• 08/13/24: Trump Has to Run Like It's 2016 Again
• 08/07/24: Is Trump Running Against Harris -- or Donald Trump?
• 07/30/24: Kamala Harris' 'Mean Girls' Election
• 07/23/24: Kamala Harris Is the Opponent Donald Trump Wants
• 07/16/24: Ready for Biden's Counterattack?
• 07/09/24: Biden Faces Richard Nixon's Choice
• 07/02/24: Should Biden Drop Out -- or Resign?
• 06/18/24: Separate Sexual Identity and State
• 06/18/24: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent
• 06/04/24: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print