Dr. Micah David Naziri

Recently, the “Student” organization rumored to be funded by Muslim Brotherhood front groups, organized what they claimed was a “Free Gaza” rally. Naturally, Jewish community leaders warned their congregants to steer clear of these rallies – understanding them to be hotbeds of antisemitism and violence.

Just as naturally, this was like an activism “Bat Signal” to me. Though I went with several Jewish women who recorded from afar (each of these women who would not fit the normal phenotypic expectations the “Free Gaza” outrage hounds. Ironically and humorously, each of these women, diverse in appearance, would be told to “stay away from the Jew” as they recorded my interactions with hundreds of foaming-at-the-mouth “protesters.”

But first, let’s look at who the “student” group that organized this Pro-Hamas rally actually is…

At first, it struck me as odd that this group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), was able to assemble throngs of protesters the day after the October 7th Hamas Pogrom. I was in Columbus then, as in the case of the counter-protesting described in this article, as I am most Sundays – training with one of my martial arts instructors (this one having been my instructor for the better part of two decades). After training, my wife and I went to pick up some vegan burgers and almond milk shakes at Shake Shack, on High Street. While waiting for our order, I saw this massive rally make its way down the street.

“Who organized this?” I darted out, quickly to ask.

“We are Students for Justice in Palestine!” an excited young lady exclaimed.

Interesting, I thought. I have been deeply immersed in just about every intersectional nook and cranny of activism, from the Earth Liberation Front and Earth First! to organizing the armed protests against the Stanford Rapist, Brock Turner, to organizing years of protests for John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio, to – like I said – just about anything you could thing of. Certainly, I have been to my fair share of Pro-Palestinian protests, in the United States and the State of Israel alike. This activity went back to the 1990s. Yet I have never known a protest of such a magnitude that could be assembled literally overnight.

This was a major red flag. Obviously, it would not be prudent for me to make a formal accusation, such as suggesting they had some foreknowledge of the Hamas Pogrom, which led to them organizing this “Free Gaza” march, before a single bomb had been dropped, or a single Israel Defense Forces boot stepped on Gazan soil.

So I’m not saying that… per se – but I am saying that the thought certainly arose as to whether there might be something there. Again, there is simply no way a protest of that size could have just been organized overnight with a turn out like that. It doesn’t happen. People need to schedule off for work, baby sitters, and sometimes people simply have other plans that cannot be changed at the last minute. Again, there had been no bomb dropped yet, and here was SJP, with this massive march down High Street, just a day after the Hamas Pogrom.

“Curious,” I thought. “Curious.”

For well over a decade, various Jewish institutions have filed complaints and published reports against the SJP, alleging Muslim Brotherhood-linked funding and connections with academics.

The SJP founder, Hatem Bazian, is a professor at University of California–Berkeley (because of course he is).  While still a student himself, Bazian was reportedly a member of the General Union of Palestinian Students and the Muslim Students Association, two well-documented outgrowths of the Ikhwan al-Muslimin terror organization, known in English as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas itself, it should be remembered, emerged in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, or intifadhah, as an outgrowth of the Ikhwan’s Palestinian branch. These connections are not simply academic footnotes. They are clear breadcrumbs that reveal the funding and coordination of terror groups with global professional “activist” leaders, orchestrating half-informed and disinformation-based social outrage against all Jews who dare to believe in our right to simply exist without being kidnapped, raped and murdered in the name of a “Free Gaza.”

According to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Bazian realized that openly identifying with the Ikhwan would potentially prevent large-scale recruitment and influence by his organizations.

The aims and beliefs of the SJP were essentially identical to that of the Ikhwan, but he promoted it as a progressive organization, tied to Western Leftist ideals. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ties between SJP and Hamas are far from simply ideological. For instance, SJP members have often been heard – even recorded – spouting homophobic rhetoric, which would otherwise seem out of place in a Western Leftist organization.

Bazian did not stop with the SJP. He also launched the group known as the American Muslims for Palestine, an organization which he now chairs. This group does not hide its financial backing for the SJP. Both groups, as well, share personnel and donors with numerous Hamas fronts.

Here’s how the event went…

As we approached, myself walking just ahead of my wives Shlomit, Yairah and Naharah, an apparently Caucasian leftist with a bandana around his face – no doubt fancying himself an “anarchist” of some sort, or even “Antifa” – ran up to stand in front of me as a glorious White Sentinel, with arms outstretched, like the fictional Gospel character of his family’s religious adoration and worship.

He made it clear, “you are not welcome here.”

I responded, “why not? ‘Juden Betreten Verboten‘?”

He continued his bizarre attempts to block me, which I simply ignored. I walked through him, pushing him back with my body, my hip locking into his from beneath his center of gravity, as I informed him that he had no authority to prevent me from accessing a public space.

I continued to move forward, plowing the little guy ahead me, as he stood impotent to prevent my entry. He barked various Cyber-Leftist talking points about a conflict he clearly had not even a superficial knowledge of. Finally, after he stood on his toes to lean into my face, bumping chests with me, I had grown tired of his games. He put is hands up to push me and I arched over him, bending him backwards a little with my presence. I gutturally growled “you want to bump chests little guy.”

You can see a blurry still of this in some of the embedded images from my Instagram account below.

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A post shared by Micah Naziri (@micahnaziri)

I don’t like to resort to such seemingly “macho” talk, but I felt this was preferable to invoking the rights, which I was well within, to counter his aggressive pushing with violence. Still, I had work to do, and giving this kid a free martial arts lesson was not part of that work (unless he absolutely insisted).

Seeing me dominantly arch over this “woke” college kid, who no doubt saw himself as somehow defending freedom by cheerleading the Neo-Salafi Fascist religious cult that is Hamas, a police officer sprung from dormancy into action, yelling “hey! hey!”

I replied, “no, don’t ‘hey! hey!’ me, when you saw this kid putting his hands on me and you didn’t muster a single ‘hey!’ for him.”

The officer then turned to him and told him to back off of me, and that he was not legally permitted to bare anyone from entry to public spaces.

As it turned out, this young man actually steered me towards the direction he was trying to turn me away from. I simply drove him in reverse towards the destination he was trying to keep me away from. As it turned out, this was right on the rear and side of the stage where the angry shrill cries of the SJP organizers.

A clear enough example of Divine providence (to me, at least), this young man had led me to the exact place where I would be most visible, in his efforts to deter me from that space.

Within minutes, the organizers and their countless non-student members and supporters were enraged. Time and time again, I kept asking them what they found so offensive about the sign.

They called me a “Zionist” to which I simply asked, “what does ‘Zionism’ mean?”

Naturally, none of them had any intelligible answer to this question. Then came the death threats, fi-l-lughat al-`Arabiyyah. 

It took me hearing it with my own ears, to really have it click. This was the first Palestinian protest in which I wasn’t lauded as some token Pro-Palestinian Jew that everyone wanted to introduce to their family. 

My “Zionist” crime? Simply saying that Hamas did not represent Islam, nor any of the Gazans which I know, love and have worked directly with in the Jam`at al-Fitrah, for over a decade. 

Now, there were literally hundreds saying targeting Jewish civilians is legitimate revolution and Islamic (obviously it is not), and that rape is a valid tool for Palestinian “revolution”. 

Ironically, they shouted all of this from stolen Native American land. When I pointed this out these munafiqun cackled at the thought that it was Nifaq, or blatant hypocrisy… 

“Do as we say, not as we do,” I said – noting the irony further. 

“Matter of fact,” I added, “do any of you have ancestral connections to Turtle Island here, the way Jews to do Judea?”

Lots of homophobic sluts of “Ya Manyak” and such ensued. I said “why don’t you tell all these nice little white college leftists what you are saying in Arabic? Let them know how Hamas treats homosexuals!”

An angry young man said “F*ck you Jew!” to which I said, “why don’t come come try to f*ck me ya habibi?”

That’s when the death threats started. 

I heard a number of them coordinating a plan to distract me, while another of them said he would sneak up from behind and stab me. They were all very disappointed to hear that I understood them. 

Of course, this is when the almost passe “Khaybar! Khaybar! Ya Yahud!” cries could be heard – invoking late Caliphate-commissioned myth of genocide against the Jews of Khaybar. In the centuries-late narration, Muhammad merely feared the Jews of Khaybar would betray him, and thus, he slaughtered them. 

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How and why this and other Islamicate genocide narrations emerged is a tale for another day. For the seriously interested student of history and Islamic Origins, I would recommend the text Unraveling the Myth of the Banu Qurayzah: The Origins of Islamicate Genocide (2011).

Remember, all of this Islamicate drama ensued simply because I said Hamas was bad. All the while, I made certain to emphasize that I am pro-Palestinian and typically not a fan of any government, including that of Israel. Yet, simply opposing Hamas meant it was okay to stab me.

During all of this, a young Palestinian man, as large as he was angry, rushed towards me. The police came to block him, but I urged them to allow him to come chat. Even one of the SJP organizers got between us, because someone had told them they recognized me as a judge of the Muay Thai fights at the Arnold Classic (also in Columbus, annually). 

While this was going on, a young Caucasian LGBTQ+ Leftist for Hamas (who, again, would kill him if he stepped foot in Gaza), nabbed my “Free Gaza From Hamas” sign and threw it in the park’s lake. He said something like “Oh, looks like you don’t have your sign any more.” 

This struck me as odd. Perhaps your average person is not as stubborn as me, but there was no chance in <em>Jahannam</em> that I was letting this little college kid end my fun prematurely. 

“Yeah, the thing is, you threw my sign in water, not fire. I’ll be right back,” I said. I jumped in the lake, grabbed my sign, and stood triumphantly while the jaws of the SJP Hamas “simps” hit the ground. It was, after all, fairly cold out. But, again, they really underestimated how stubborn I am. 

After retrieving my sign – the whole thing taking about ten seconds – I stood triumphantly holding the sign that had so infuriated these open Hamas supporters. My jacket, Shlomit, Yairah and Naharah told me, happened to be exposing part of my H&K VP9 Match 9mm pistol and additional three 20-round magazines on my opposite hip. 

Suddenly, the mob of would-be stabbers realized they had brought a knife to a proverbial gun fight.

Again, I felt a sense of Divine Providence. Perhaps these guys were going to actually try their little stabbing plan, as so many of these “child prisoners” being released from Israeli prisons have certainly tried on the streets of Israel. Perhaps this odd little misguided leftist who threw the sign ended up saving one or more SJP professional activists’ lives that day – had they decided to test fate. As the Qur’an says, wa-Allahu `Alim.

Time and time again, when a curious Palestinian tried to approach me to discuss or debate, the Ikhwan-funded organizers rushed over to prevent them, and in one case physically removed the person. Shlomit, Yairah and Naharah, for their parts, were all told not to talk to me when the SJP organizers saw them approach me to ask how much longer we were going to be there, because they wanted to head over to the mall with me when we were done. 

Yet at the very end (as you will see in the Instagram photos above), an elder of the local Palestinian community actually came and talked with me and told the SJP to stop telling him not to talk with me. When they all left to go march and chant their Pro-Hamas bars (if it rhymes, it has got to be true!), he and I stayed and talked. The conversation was fairly productive. He asked that though the conversation was recorded, we not post it anywhere, as he seemed to understand the threat he faced from his own community for sitting and discussing with me, rather than shouting talking points at me.

The first time i read a translation of the Qur’an, i was astonished by many strange terms, that did not seem to fit with the context and character of the work. To me, the text fit with the style and even phrasing of many of the, then recently translated Dead Sea Scrolls. There was more than a hint of similarity with the Second Temple Era Jewish Apocalyptic genre, as well. So why were there so many passage that at once lauded the Jewish people, and in another instance would seem to damn us? To answer this, i would engage in decades of research, Arabic study, and eventually compose the first of two masters theses on the matter, in the work, People of the Book: What the Religions Named in the Qur’an Can Tell Us About the Earliest Understanding of “Islam”.

There was another passage, as well, that stood out… that was the infamous ayah which allegedly gives a husband permission to “beat his wife” – often with the condition interpolated – “lightly.”

It would turn out that the alleged denunciations of the Jewish people, as well as this passage, were not in fact attributes of Qur’anic content, but instead the whims and fancies of Qur’anic translators, seeking to Divinely-justify and legitimize their crimes of antisemitism, misogyny and domestic violence.

To begin with, i must note that understanding proper tafsir exegesis of this ayah is precisely why study of both pre-Qur’anic sources of poetry (which the Qur’an was showing up in eloquence), as well as the lingua franca of the educated throughout the Middle East then – Aramaic – is essential. Qur’anic Arabic certainly became the standardized form of Arabic. Nevertheless, this compilation of orations of Muhammad was itself composed of several regional “Arabic” dialects of Aramaic – which nearly always and only used the Nabatean script, but in the Qur’an seems to have employed a modified Syriac script which became known as “Kufic”.

This too is a topic for future elaboration. The scholar of Semitic linguistics, for instance, will notice the common six irregular plural forms of Ge`ez, which creep into many passages of the Qur’an – likely during the exile in the Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum. Thus, we see the normative kaffirin and kaffirun, yet elsewhere see kuffar. This indicates two different audiences preserving the oration. Again, this is a topic which an entire dissertation could be written on, so it is far beyond the scope of this article to address the matter in further detail.

Understanding this, one quickly sees that the term in question within the aforementioned Qur’anic ayah, in Surat an-Nisa, refers to a final step in sexual punishment, after having starved the suspected adulteress from sexual contact. The ayah thus says, essentially that “if that didn’t work, then it’s this – this is the problem and you should engage her accordingly…” It then instructs the man to “beat” her. Often, it is interpolated that this should be “lightly,” and centuries later ahadith would indeed emerge to indicate that this was the prevailing tafsir of the `ulema, but there is no contextual linguistic indication that this was the case. Certainly, however, the ayah does imply a “beating” that is done lightly and lovingly – but this is supposed to be inferred as sexual in nature – not in terms of domestic violence, but in terms of vigorous and aggressive love-making.

To expound further and more specifically, the dh-r-b (ضرب) root does mean “to hit” but also literally means to “pound” and “impact” or “pommel” and “thrash.” It can and also is still used to mean someone is a “go getter” – simply meaning that they are exhibiting “aggressive energy.” As well, this is said to be the final step to satisfy a woman who is experiencing dissatisfaction, who you perhaps even fear is looking elsewhere to have her sexual needs met. The root here is n-sh-z (نشز) and means dissatisfaction literally, but it is never rendered as such in translations nor tafsir.

Thus, an honest reading, bearing in mind cognate usage in the Aramaic lingua franca of the time, renders the ayah as follows:

Men are straightening assets (قَوَّٰمُونَ) of women, [protecting against men who would exploit them] by that which Allah has given one over the other [in physical strength and testosterone], as well as by what they expend from their wealth. So righteous women are devout, guarding in the unseen (لِّلْغَيْبِ) what Allah would have them guard. But those from whom you fear [sexual] dissatisfaction (نشز) – [first] admonish them; [then if they persist], abandon them in bed [alone] – let them sleep by themselves – and [if that does not solve the problem], aggressively attack them them (ٱضْرِبُوهُنَّ) [in bed]. But if they submit to you [sexually], from the “impaling” (طعن), seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

ٱلرِّجَالُ قَوَّٰمُونَ عَلَى ٱلنِّسَآءِ بِمَا فَضَّلَ ٱللَّهُ بَعْضَهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍۢ وَبِمَآ أَنفَقُوا۟ مِنْ أَمْوَٰلِهِمْ ۚ فَٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتُ قَـٰنِتَـٰتٌ حَـٰفِظَـٰتٌۭ لِّلْغَيْبِ بِمَا حَفِظَ ٱللَّهُ ۚ وَٱلَّـٰتِى تَخَافُونَ نُشُوزَهُنَّ فَعِظُوهُنَّ وَٱهْجُرُوهُنَّ فِى ٱلْمَضَاجِعِ وَٱضْرِبُوهُنَّ ۖ فَإِنْ أَطَعْنَكُمْ فَلَا تَبْغُوا۟ عَلَيْهِنَّ سَبِيلًا ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ عَلِيًّۭا كَبِيرًۭا

Qur’an, Surat an-Nisa, ayah 34

Interestingly, this is consistent with the poetic use of the term in Arabic poetry, where the word indicates what colloquially in English, would be crassly rendered as “beat it up.”

Certainly, this is not the manner in which all women desire lovemaking. That is precisely why the Qur’an is indicating that first and foremost, refrain from sex with her… as maybe you are simply having sex with her more often than she actually desires. It is saying back off a bit. Then, if all else has failed, the woman’s sexual dissatisfaction with you may simply be that you are being too “gentle.”

But how can you, the reader, be certain of this? What if this is just the bizarre tafsir of a perverse Jewish scholar of Islam, such as fundamentalists no doubt would consider me? We can we be further certain of this because whenever the imperative verb idhrib is used in the Quran to denote striking whether idiomatically or otherwise, the Qur’an always qualifies it with one or both of the following:

1. What object to use to strike with, and / or
2. What part of the body or object to strike

We see the following relevant examples:

• Strike the rock (2) with your staff (1) (2:60)
• Strike him (2) with a part of it (heifer) (1) (2:73)
• Strike the rock (2) with your staff (1) (7:160)
• Strike off their heads (2) and strike off every fingertip (2) of them (8:12)
• Strike off every fingertip (2) of them (8:12)
• Strike, or split open for them a dry path in the sea (20:77)
• Strike the sea (2) with your staff (1) (26:63)
• Take in your hand a bundle of twigs (1), and strike with it (38:44)

Linguistically, as we have seen above, the Qur’an always says what to beat with or where to beat, when using this verb. This is the only time it doesn’t, which politely and discretely indicates “you know where and with what.”

It is only in ayah 4:34 that we see that the imperative verb idhrib neither tells us (1) what object to use to strike with nor (2) what part of the body to strike. This has led some apologists to conclude that a secondary meaning of “separate” should be employed here. Indeed, we see in one of the aforementioned examples, that the verb is used to both mean strike and split open the sea. Here too, bearing in mind the Qur’an was orated within the context of standing superior to popular forms of Arabic poetry of the day, we might see a poetic allegory at play. The Qur’an, however, is not going to articulate this matter in a crass way. It is not going to spell out what part of the woman’s body is to be “beaten up” with what part of the man’s body. So it employs this verb that is used in the Qur’an to mean “beat” and “split open” or “divide.”

It is this context of “separation” that the verb indicates – not separation as in divorce. Indeed, that type of separation is indistinguishable from the Qur’anic term talaq, for divorce. A case in point, I knew a Muslimah many years ago who engaged to a married man, who had told her in English, that he was “separated” from his wife. She found out later that they were not divorced and was none too pleased with the brother. And yet, he had neither lied nor tried to deceive her. The meaning was simply lost in translation.

Here then, if the Qur’an wished to indicate divorce, it would have simply used its normal phrasing of talaq. It is, instead, saying something quite different. It is giving bedroom advice to men.

Apparently, many within the divided Muslim Ummah have rejected this advice, and instead turned to later ahadith and tafasir to justify domestic violence. Perhaps, if such “men” heeded the words of the Qur’an, which they allege to see as Divinely revealed, then their wives would be much more satisfied.

…and, as it is said, Allah knows Best.

The Torah supports redistribution of wealth (and food). Though I do support ideas of personal liberty insofar as such does not interfere with the rights and liberties of the perceived other (other ego-identities which we illusorily see as “individuals”), I do not believe in absolute liberty and autonomy unless one wishes to completely disengage and remove themselves from society (assuming they have that ability). This is, of course, a sad reality for purely Libertarian Jews on the right…

My primary critique of Libertarianism, which I have in some ways been very close to, and walked in some of the same circles as (and famously debated against, within Libertarian podcasts and radio shows), is that they do not seem to get is that the REAL WORLD is about FORCE.

You have to ward off force (intercept and neutralize) or mitigate force through yielding (and subsequent neutralization and countering). It’s that simple. EVERYTHING comes down to that: yang or yin.

That means, as we say in the Nei Jia “investing in a loss” when force is superior to your own. That means perhaps giving up space, and neutralizing in the void to avoid your center being taken. Only if neutralizing is extremely high level can one neutralize in place, drawing into the center, rather than away from it, and bring into the void within their gravitational center.

i am still a baby at such skills, but i have done it in controlled environments and felt it from others far better at it than me. Now imagine that in an uncontrolled environment, and with bodies of entire societies rather than forms of meat and blood. That is a whole different level of engagement.

Libertarians live in a world of theory, not a world of heavily armed groups out to take everything unless compromise and yielding is engaged in.

Society itself is structured on coercive force and that means as long as there is ANY government, there will be forced taxation; as long as governments are in touch with reality and realize the maxim of “hungry people don’t stay hungry for long” then there will be taxation to redistribute wealth to some degree.

The ideal is communal, small communities practicing voluntary participatory communalism that some call “Anarcho-Communism.” But this is ideal, and ideals do not always play out as theorized in the real world. As Mike Tyson famously said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

It is based on this understanding that State Communism emerged, even though Marx explained that true Communism must be communal and essentially anarchic, without government. Anything less, he explained, was Socialism, which he saw as worse than Capitalism in a sense, because it delayed the inevitability of a Proletariat Revolution.

But the real world does not play out in black and white. There never was an inevitability of a Proletariat Revolution. In reality, there is a lot of gray. In reality, when powerful people and forces see that profit (real or imagined) can be lost through polarization of Capitalism and Communist Proletariat Revolution, they will implement a Synthesis between this Thesis and Antithesis: Capitalism with Socialist domestic policies.

That is why China is so successful, not because it is true Theoretical Communism but because it successfully yielded and synthesized both Communism and Capitalism, by being a Socialist society. That doesn’t mean I see their approach as ideal, but they have certainly made it work, and if it works, it is difficult to argue that there is no truth in it.

Marx should have understood better that things are not always black and white, this or that… but he was largely a man of theory – ironically not even a man of labor, himself living off of the wealth of others. That is okay, theory is theory. In the real world, he needed time and mental space to write theory. So that required the support of others’ labor. But this is certainly not what the average blue collar worker would see as fair. That’s okay too.

The world is simply not fair. Not this world. It never has been and never will be until there is a new Heaven and Earth (the next cycle of Cosmic Crunch and Big Bang).

But now we’re getting deep and no one is trying to have that deep of a swim first thing in the morning. So i leave you with these thoughts.

Peace and Blessings of Abundant Goodness.