Dear Useful Idiots

Dear Useful Idiots is Eitan Chitayat’s challenge to people who believe they are standing for justice but may be repeating slogans, propaganda and narratives without fully understanding where they come from or what they support. He calls on people, especially young activists and students, to think critically, learn the history and question what they are being told before taking a side. The piece asks people to look more closely at the movements they support, the language they repeat and whether those ideas truly reflect the values of justice, freedom and human rights they believe they are defending. At its core, it is a call to stop, think and make sure good intentions are not being used to fuel hatred.

Watch the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIjNtgUAB1g

Key takeaways

• The phrase ‘useful idiots’ is used provocatively to describe people whose activism may advance agendas they do not fully understand or actually share.
• The piece is particularly concerned with young people and students who may be drawn into political movements through social media, peer pressure and simplified narratives.
• Critical thinking requires context, multiple sources and a willingness to question messages that confirm what we already believe.
• Criticism of Israel should not become a license to demonize Jews, erase Jewish history or excuse violence against civilians.
• Supporting Palestinian rights and opposing antisemitism or terrorism are not mutually exclusive positions.
• Good intentions do not protect people from being manipulated by propaganda or extremist messaging

FAQs

What is the central message?

Question what you are being told, understand whose agenda a message may serve and make sure your activism reflects the humane values you believe you are defending.

Why does the piece focus on critical thinking?

Because Eitan argues that slogans, viral content and emotionally charged imagery can shape political beliefs without providing the history or context necessary to understand a complex conflict.

Is Eitan saying people cannot criticize Israel?

No. The broader argument is that criticism should be informed and humane, and should not slide into dehumanization, denial of Jewish identity or justification of terrorism.

Who does Eitan mean by ‘useful idiots’?

He uses the phrase for people who may believe they are acting from compassion or justice but whose words or activism can be exploited by extremist movements and antisemitic narratives.

 

SCRIPT

I want to address every single college student who hates Israel and supports Hamas, the genocidal terrorist organization founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose goal is for Muslims to rule the entire world in the name of Allah.

Same as Hezbollah, Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The list goes on.

Let’s start with this. You say you’re concerned about justice, fairness, ending oppression and promoting human rights.

Cool.

But here’s what isn’t: when more than a million Sudanese were murdered or enslaved by Arabs not long ago, you didn’t make a peep.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees have been oppressed, displaced and slaughtered not in Israel – but in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – for generations – but you haven’t made a sound about them, either.

No protests when China was locking up a million Uyghur Muslims in detention camps… or when Syria was killing over half a million of its own citizens… or as Iran executes gay people – today – in despicable public displays.

So what gives?

You seem oddly particular about the humanitarian causes that stir you to action.

But yeah, you’re BFFs with Hamas, a group that’s violently opposed to just about everything you claim is important to you. A group that proudly supports genocide in its very charter. A group that uses rape as a weapon of war. A group that literally throws homosexuals off rooftops. Like, literally.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so…hypocritical. Clueless. Ridiculous.

And sad. Heartbreakingly sad.

I don’t think you’re aware of this, but your concern, to me, is merely a pose…virtue-signaling with garden-variety Jew hate at its core. Because let’s be honest: that’s what your tents and your signs are really all about. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

The thousands of dollars your parents are spending to send you to an elite university have gone to waste, because obviously you’re failing to learn fact-based history, or logic, or ethics.

In fact, you’re rebelling against modernity and the values of the Enlightenment — the very things that comprise the foundation of the amazing world you live in.

You’re protesting against the very system that has made your pampered, cushy, easy lives possible because you believe you can create a better world. In the depths of your ignorance, you have no idea how easy it is to break everything those bettering humankind have achieved these past thousands of years. And how hard it is to build it back up again.

You are naïve.

Like most Israel-haters, you resent success, especially of white people and Jews. But newsflash. 50 percent of us Jews are not white.

You refuse to acknowledge the Middle East’s ugly reality in which a tribal, backwards mentality permeates the Arab world and combines with the massive failure of Arab leadership to keep a talented and potential-filled people in economic and spiritual poverty.

Instead, you protest the Middle East’s only democracy, where people of all faiths have equal rights, as do women, gays… everyone. Look, Israel may not be perfect, but it’s far, far better than anything else in our region and most of the world, for that matter. Yet you insist on keeping your blinders on and refusing to learn about it.

By remaining ignorant, you’re making it worse for the very people you want to save. Worse for us. Worse for the region. Worse for humanity.

You have no idea, do you?

I’ll tell you right now that your protests will fail. If, hypothetically, you were ever to succeed, I know I’d see a lot of your shocked faces. Because only then would you understand the merciless nature of the world you created.

But, you won’t. You’ll fail. Israel isn’t going anywhere.

And neither are the Western world’s values, which so many good people throughout history – including many Jews – fought to create.

It’s not too late to get it right.

Don’t be a blind follower. Don’t be a mindless hater. Don’t be a useful idiot.

Choose to be a free thinker.

And be free.