Anton van der Merwe

I am a scientist studying molecular immunology

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

@hzomlot I think you mean centres for indoctrinating Jew hatred.

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

It is, indeed, a house of cards. An intellectually flaccid set of ideological assumptions and ahistorical conceits that enable even the most self-righteous of intellectuals to experience the thrill of deep and visceral bigotry.

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

Beyond satire.

[Chris Mowrey @chrisdmowrey]

the republican nominee in Virginia believes solar panels don’t work when it’s dark outside and windmills don’t work when “there’s no wind”.

Stunning levels of incompetence and garbage.

[Hamas Atrocities @HamasAtrocities]

The "palestinian" leadership rejected statehood offers many times.
A short thread about five important moments in history
🧵👇

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

@HamasAtrocities You miss out the act that before this a Palestinian state had already been created. Now called Jordan, it comprises 75% of the original Palestine Mandate and has a large Palestinian majority. This shows that the core Arab/Palestinian demand is no Jewish state.

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Please die, it's great for us! In a conversation with a “pro-Palestine” individual that I hope one day soon will be available for the whole world to see, the person said the quiet part out loud: dead & maimed Palestinians in Gaza are excellent content on social media to help delegitimize Israel and make this cause popular.

When I pushed back and said that this is just what Sinwar & Hamas wanted and have long promoted, the individual said well, it’s tragic and sad, but they’re going to die anyway, so why not make their sacrifices count. I pleaded that we’re talking about my 12-year-old niece Farah, my dad’s youngest brother uncle Riyad, my aunts Zeinab, my khalo Abdullah, cousins Yahya and Heba, who didn’t want to be sacrificed for your protests and anti-Israel activism on college campuses, but to no avail.

This individual is not alone; for many alleged “pro-Palestine” activists, this is a spectator sport that has little to no impact on their lives and is a means through which to vector far-left cultist ideology and beliefs about resistance, post-colonialism, anti-Westernism, and faux theories of intersectionality.

I’ll say it again: the “pro-Palestine” movement outside of Gaza in general, and especially in the Western world, has devolved into one of the most anti-Palestinian groups of people I have ever encountered; their speech, actions, intentions, and views have consistently demonstrated this fact.

Please stay away from our cause and stop sucking the oxygen out of the room – my family and 50,000+ dead Palestinians are not sexy content for your Instagram and social feeds to fuel your ineffective, harmful, divisive, and harmful activism.

[Emily Damari @EmilyDamari1]

Dear Members of the @PulitzerPrizes board,

My name is Emily Damari. I was held hostage in Gaza for over 500 days.

On the morning of October 7, I was at home in my small studio apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas terrorists burst in, shot me and dragged me across the border into Gaza. I was one of 251 men, women, children, and elderly people kidnapped that day from their beds, their homes, and a music festival.

For almost 500 days I lived in terror. I was starved, abused, and treated like I was less than human. I watched friends suffer. I watched hope dim. And even now, after returning home, I carry that darkness with me - because my best friends, Gali and Ziv Berman are still being held in the Hamas terror tunnels.

So imagine my shock and pain when I saw that you awarded a Pulitzer Prize to Mosab Abu Toha.

This is a man who, in January, questioned the very fact of my captivity. He posted about me on Facebook and asked, “How on earth is this girl called a hostage?” He has denied the murder of the Bibas family. He has questioned whether Agam Berger was truly a hostage. These are not word games - they are outright denials of documented atrocities.

You claim to honor journalism that upholds truth, democracy, and human dignity. And yet you have chosen to elevate a voice that denies truth, erases victims, and desecrates the memory of the murdered.

Do you not see what this means? Mosab Abu Toha is not a courageous writer. He is the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier. And by honoring him, you have joined him in the shadows of denial.

This is not a question of politics. This is a question of humanity. And today, you have failed it.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

1/This post didn't get a lot of attention, but I really enjoyed writing it (which is what really matters). So I figured I'd turn it into a thread!

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

@jonsac Superb speech. Great dignity in the face of irrational hatred. You are very brave.

[Campaign Against Antisemitism @antisemitism]

“We’ve had swastikas...people chased down streets.”

We spoke to two students at @UniofOxford who joined the March Against Antisemitism because of the horrific incidents they experienced.

No student should have to go through what they have.

Our universities have let down Jewish students in Britain. This must not be allowed to continue.

If you’ve experienced antisemitism at university, e-mail us at [email protected]

[Amanda Knox @amandaknox]

When I was found guilty of murder & sentenced to 26 years, I lost all hope that the truth of my innocence would ever matter. The prison put me on suicide watch. It was shortly thereafter that I received a curious letter from a psychology professor. /🧵

[Neetu Arnold @neetu_arnold]

Asian American voters shifted right…by A LOT

National exit polls underestimated the rightward shifts of AA in major urban areas. WaPo, NBC found a shift under 10 pts

My analysis of Asian-majority precincts show shifts of 15-30 pts

Why the shift? AA voters explain⬇️

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

China totally dominates green tech

https://t.co/Vqjit7LN3w

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

@afalkhatib We all agree that Palestinians are suffering terribly and that this needs to be stopped. The question is how. The main obstacle is the determination of Palestinians in power to eliminate Israel or die trying. How do we replace them?

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

When I was in Germany, I traveled outside of Berlin to meet some Palestinian friends who were part of the diaspora community in the country. I hung out with several individuals from Gaza or who have family in the Strip and are part of a network of individuals and organizations that are pro-Palestine. I had extremely intense conversations with these folks, some of whom listened and agreed, some of whom strongly disagreed, some of whom were confused by what I was saying, some who agreed but didn’t see a path forward, and some who literally threatened to beat me up if I didn’t stop talking. Here's what I got out of those conversations:

1. Hamas’s resistance narrative is widely accepted and embraced by large segments of the Palestinian diaspora community, particularly those who are less integrated into the nations in which they live, especially if their environment is mainly made up of other Palestinians, aka echo chambers.

2. Intense emotions and feelings dominate the discourse and how people view the war, Israel, Hamas, the conflict, and any discussions of responsibility and a path forward. Trauma, sadness, anger, and feelings of sheer injustice control the way people see what’s happening, October 7, claims and counterclaims, and competing narratives.

3. Opposition to Hamas, and my views and sentiments were instantly associated with treachery, weakness, cowardice, and embracing “Zionist lies and propaganda.” Undeterred, I argued that not only is opposition to Hamas necessary, courageous, critical, and inseparable from opposition to Israeli occupation and injustices, but that we are in this mess partly due to our complicit silence and acquiescence to Hamas’s Islamist propaganda and destructive narratives that harmed the Palestinians more than any Zionist could ever dream of doing.

4. Misinformation about so many incidents and occurrences is rampant. This is particularly the case when it comes to boycotting things like Starbucks, Coke products, McDonald’s, and hundreds of other goods. The list of “forbidden” things is so huge and contains the most ridiculous of items, such as KitKat, hot sauce, and innocuous consumer products, all because they are perceived as directly supporting Israel, the war, or the IDF. When challenged about the accuracy of their information, almost no one wanted to hear about the futility of these boycotts and their nonexistent impact on the war and broader Israel and Palestine discourse.

5. Some were incredibly furious at me for challenging the “martyrdom” narrative, and one person threatened me with physical violence if I didn’t stop maligning martyrdom. Of course, I didn’t back down and proceeded to rationally challenge this idea of Gazans killed in the war after October 7 being martyrs with a ticket straight to heaven and that this is Islamist propaganda and brainwashing that’s getting us nowhere. I said that my family was killed for nothing and that most Gazans who lost their lives would have chosen life over being killed so that Hamas could maintain its corrupt and despicable rule over the coastal enclave.

6. A pro-resistance man surprisingly agreed with me when I told him that Hamas prevented civilians from evacuating Gaza’s north early in the war and didn’t want people to leave, a ruthless decision that caused unnecessary loss of life. This is something that many Western fools refuse to acknowledge: Hamas wanted Gazans to stay put so that they could be used as human shields by the group and frustrate the Israeli military’s operations by causing maximum civilian casualties.

7. Several agreed with me that Hamas is only interested in maintaining power, but in the absence of alternatives, they didn’t see anything wrong with this. When I kept saying that Hamas’s continued rule in Gaza means endless wars and more death & destruction, none seemed to have any meaningful responses beyond some mumbles and incoherent rants.

8. The military occupation of the West Bank and settlement expansion kept coming up over and over. Whenever I pushed on Hamas, taking responsibility, having to accept Israel’s existence & continued existence, embracing and rebranding peace, rejecting violence, what’s happening in the West Bank kept coming up. Folks didn’t see Gaza in isolation, but as part of a broader issue/conflict/problem that can’t be compartmentalized. “If Gaza were peaceful, stable, and developed,” argued one man, “the West Bank will still be occupied,” which, in his mind, necessitates Hamas’s “resistance.”

9. This is my own assessment and inference, but I truly strongly felt that support for Hamas was primarily driven by the lack of alternatives and the binary nature of everything related to the conflict: Fatah VS. Hamas; Israel VS. Palestine; Armed resistance VS. diplomacy and nonviolence; us VS. them; kill VS. be killed; Palestinian narrative VS. Jewish narrative. In other words, there was almost little to no ability to hold multiple truths, approach the issue with nuance and rational balance, and an entrenched belief that one truth must inherently be mutually exclusive and must by default cancel out the other. When engaged, however, some were willing to think differently.

10. There was clearly a high degree of conformity when people were together versus when I engaged individuals one-on-one. In other words, group settings made for largely unproductive and hostile discussions, while individual conversations were much more likely to be productive and change people’s minds and thinking. This is consistent with the universal trend that individuals are smart, groups are dumb; people are afraid to say what they really believe and think in front of others but are much more likely to speak their minds when anonymous, alone, or away from the “community’s ears and eyes” as one gentleman put it.

In summary, my conversations were difficult and quite depressing in some regards. However, these same unpleasant and discouraging conversations actually gave me hope that with respectful, patient, persistent, rational, calm, evidence-based, and analytical/non-emotional engagements and outreach, meaningful seeds can be planted to change hearts and minds and begin the 1000-mile journey towards political transformation and the arduous effort to rebrand peace and coexistence as a necessary evolution to preserve the Palestinian people on their lands and forge a different path forward.

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

@mattanurret @BjornLomborg Seems clear who is cherry picking!

[Brian Gitt @BrianGitt]

People think wind & solar are the best way to make electricity.

I used to think that too. But I was wrong.

In my new book, I explain why.

I evaluate US power sources using 12 criteria.

🧵Why nuclear wins:

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

Ligand-induced segregation from large cell-surface phosphatases is a critical step in γδ TCR triggering https://t.co/8oeJvl48Ja

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

Ligand requirements for immunoreceptor triggering https://t.co/ZeNDSnMtOr

[Anton van der Merwe @vdmerwex]

@agona33 @ziontree @Klimavenner The Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones are wild-life havens. The radioactivity there less harmful that air pollution in a typical city. Fear is the main problem.