Palestine is Ruining the Left

I've taken this from Reddit because I've found it an interesting read, I did not write this myself, a user named u/ u/TooLittleNuance did. Feel free to reply and engage in converation.

I'm an Israeli-American leftist who has been active in American and Israeli politics for a number of years now. I have always advocated for human rights, equity, and self-determination for Palestinians who are oppressed(to different extents) under Israel, a nation that commits itself to Jewish domination of institutions. I always voted and campaigned for progressive Democrats and I assisted with the Israeli Meretz party from abroad. This is why I think the current Palestinian-sympathetic movement is ruining the left:

Abandonment of Pragmatism - Just like the 2020 George Floyd protests("Defund the Police"), the Western left has completely embraced a suicidal strategy of idealistic radicalism. Many of those on the left insist the solution to the conflict is a one-state solution consisting of Palestine "from the River to the Sea". Unfortunately, they've appropriated the Palestinian mythology in their ambitions to magically destroy Israel and the ideology of Zionism by BDS somehow or supporting Palestinian "armed struggle". It doesn't take a lot of thought to see how both of those methods are incredibly ineffective and immoral to advocate for and implement. So, instead of a pragmatic approach, like empowering the Israeli left through donations and advocacy, supporting a reasonable solution(two-state or one-state under Israel), or calling for the ultimate humanitarian end to the war of a unilateral Hamas surrender, the Western left insists on a dream scenario that will never happen. This is the most egregious behavior of the left and it's their most common mistake(i.e. Vietnam). This is due to the fact that Palestinians, especially in Gaza, are suffering under disproportionate Israeli force with no Western movement to realistically end it. In fact, these Western leftists, due to these tactics, are assisting in empowering and legitimizing the far-right of Israel. They are the perfect strawman to turn people off to the left in Israel, which, in turn, results in a lengthened Palestinian suffering.

Maximalism - There's a tendency on the left to outcompete each other in radicalism. It's not catchy or sexy to say "The war tactics that Israel uses are disproportionate and don't consider enough of the humanitarian cost", it has to be "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" in order to provoke an emotional reaction from uneducated Westerners. It's not "the security policy of Hafradah has resulted in reduced human rights of Palestinians compared to Israelis", it has to be "Apartheid"(with the only legal precedent being South Africa). These maximalist statements immeasurably hurt the movement for true progress on Palestinian human rights. It results in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation: If Israel decides to transfer the entire Gazan population to the Sinai, what is that called? A "genocide"? Due to the present labeling of the war, nobody will believe it. What if Israel permanently transfers or kills 100,000 Palestinian civilians? 200,000? 1 million? What will that be called? How can it get worse than "genocide"? This Maximalist rhetoric is not only inaccurate, but it's incredibly damaging to describe the proportionate extent of Palestinian suffering, which is vital to any movement that faithfully advocates for an upliftment of Palestinian life and identity.

Normalization of Bigotry - Explicit or latent Jew-Hatred is being increasingly embraced by radical sections of the Western left. Tropes such as "Zionist"(a euphemism for "Jew" for many) control of governments or blood libel. Wishing "Death to Zionists" or equating them with Nazis is, in most cases, latent Jew-Hatred. Regardless of your thoughts on the definition of Zionism(there is no definition, it is a meaningless term), it's clear that many believe that "Zionists" are just uppity Jews. Of course, this is genuinely believed by a small portion of the left. However, a substantial part of Western leftists has repeatedly failed to condemn this Jew-Hatred and to stop mirroring the language of these latent or explicit Jew-Haters. This is 1000x worse in the case of Israelis. For Western leftists, it's normal to call Israelis "colonizers", "demons", "rapists", and "child-murderers" on their social media without repercussion or introspective irony. As somebody belonging to the Israeli nationality, I have been desensitized to the insane amount of bigotry from those that I formerly respected. However, many Israelis or Jews aren't as depersonalized as I am, and they definitely take the bigotry to heart. What do you think results from that? Usually, a vote for Likud(Netanyahu's Party) or a donation to AIPAC. Thus, propagating a cycle of bigotry and continuing the suffering of Palestinians.

Propaganda - This war has sparked the largest disinformation campaigns in human history. Multiple state entities (Israel, U.S., Russia, Iran, Qatar) and numerous private entities are pumping out loads of propaganda in order to manipulate uneducated Westerners into supporting their interests. Since October 7th, known Russian disinformation propagator, Jackson Hinkle, has skyrocketed in followers due to his ability to mislead Western leftists on the war. I have seen an unfathomable amount of reposts from Al Jazeera and MiddleEastEye, known Qatari state propaganda and major propagates of misinformation. I have always appreciated the value of institutional skepticism that embodied many of the historical and academic leftist leaders. However, right now, those values are completely thrown out in favor of Russia or Iran's geopolitical advocacy of "everything the West does is bad". The previous three points of behavior are certainly emboldened by the paid disinformation and bots that propagate anti-Western sentiment to destabilize Western democracy. Meanwhile, the basic interests of Palestinian civilians are left unregarded while these state operatives kill their only lifeline.

Reactionary Resurgence - One of the main factors that attracted me to the left was its rejection of reactionary ideology(the establishment of traditional institutions from the past). For Israelis and Palestinians, reactionary rhetoric is normalized and encouraged in many cases. However, this reactionary ideology that has plagued those who share my nationality has spread to Western leftists in their advocacy for Palestine. Western leftists constantly appropriate the far-right and reactionary talking points that many radicalized Palestinians spout. An example would be the insistence on the exclusive indigeneity of Palestine from the River to the Sea, which abandons the progressive values of anti-nationalism and intersectionality. Another example would be the appropriation of Palestinian Martyrdom, in which many of them embraced the idea that human life can be inherently reduced to a political or national cause by their manner of death. This is a clear rejection of the values of individualism, secularism, and anti-nationalism.

Historical Negligence - Those who are even a little bit informed on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict understand that the conflict is too complex to be treated as a soccer match of Israelis vs. Palestinians. Many Israeli and Palestinian leaders set roadblocks to an equitable peace, while many others progressed the conflict to a more positive state. Even more than the historical complexity of this conflict, evaluating the moral complexity requires a graduate degree in a relevant field with hundreds of hours of research. I typically advise not to trust anybody's commentary of the conflict with any less credibility than the previous sentence. However, the Western left has instead decided to follow the historical and moral analysis of demagogues. There's constantly factually wrong or misleading historical information on many of these Palestinian-sympathetic accounts. An example is the map of a "disappearing Palestine" that millions have reposted, a blatantly misleading map meant to depict "Zionist colonization", meanwhile, neglecting the historical borders of the conflict. There are many other forms of historical negligence that they commonly employ that are extremely damaging for understanding the conflict.

In conclusion, Western leftists are keeping up with the Western traditions of white saviorism and interfering with this particular trendy foreign conflict. I could have written a few more grievances that I have of the Western left(including the embracement of far-right Islamist groups) but I wanted to keep the post relatively short. In several months, Western leftists will forget about the Gazans suffering under the disproportional force of the IDF. Nobody will self-criticize the ideas or tactics that they engaged in, meanwhile, the Israeli left-wing and reliable non-Hamas Palestinian advocacy organizations are left in the dust by an ineffective white-savior-esqe Western movement. Not only that but due to all of these factors making the left look like lunatics, Biden and the Democrats are being affected in the polling, which may result in Trump being elected, a terrible outcome for Palestinians.

If you're looking for Hamas 'leaders', don't expect to find them cowering in tunnels under Gaza. Not only don't they live there, but they very rarely set foot in the place. Every one of them (past and present) is a billionaire, living it up in luxury homes in Qatar or Monaco, raking in (stealing) all that money you've been donating for decades, telling their jihadi flunkies to 'be brave' and 'fight to the end' and propagating Jew hatred among Gaza's residents. They are nothing but evil opportunist scum.

Likud Herut UK

Found this video on tiktok. This guy I see his page a lot and he's good at explaining things.

But this girl that was arguing with him, lmao she didn't know shit.

I know not all pro palis think this, but this is an example of people I have actually come across.

Another day, another years-long follow that thinks "revolution" means opening fire on 200 teens in a rave and holding 240 people hostage

@daughterofstories @freegazafromhamas @inklingm8 @tochecha @jewishgay4il y'all got blocked because our friend here @amphibiousflorence has enough spoons to be antisemitic but not enough spoons to talk about their internalized antisemitism or how this has affected their view of millenia-spanning geopolitical conflicts in an area of the world they've never been to.

Background below the cut:

For those out of the loop, @amphibiousflorence made a new thread to announce they were Out Of Spoons to deal with the concerned Jews in their notes begging OP to reconsider their words...

...including one @freegazafromhamas who is descended from survivors of the Holocaust (as am I), ie a genocide which took place in a "civilized part of the world" where nobody thought such a thing would be possible.

Antisemitism has been a force of nature for 3700 years. We can fight it around the world all we want, we will never root it out everywhere that Jews exist. Just like any other form of bigotry. What we CAN do is provide Jews a safe haven from this force of nature in their ancestral homeland.

Hey @amphibiousflorence, don't use your disability to weasle your way out of the consequences of being a bigot! Unless the Elon Musk club sounds like a fun place to be?

"Israel is not purposefully targeting civilians" Why are humanitarian aid trucks being shot at and hospitals being bombed, specifically.

you're asking me like I'm the head of the IDF or something, I'm literally just a guy with a blog I'm not qualified nor obligated to educate you. this question was asked to death and was answered multiple times already.

@freegazafromhamas hey homie u know what ur talking about wanna answer this one?

So today I've tried to continue a discussion I've had with a Palestinian supporter.

The result is me being blocked again, barred from the discussion, yet my thoughts were put up on a blog and mocked.

This is a continuation of a discussion we had on Reddit but was moved here since I reached out after being blocked. The result is me being blocked again, barred from the discussion, yet my thoughts were put up on a blog and mocked.

Is this how Palestine supporters handle things, by hiding behind their screens and mocking others?

This is just a sad display of an arrogant and small minded individual, yet it is not the first I've encountered and sadly I believe this is the mindset that leads many on their side. The blog I'm referring to by username tsskyx, you're welcome to go over it and make your own mind about the interaction.

74 days and Hamas still won’t release the 129 hostages. Free Gaza, the hostages, and the world from Hamas Now! 

stopterrornow

IDF work in progress.

j.majburd

amyisraelchai

Happening now: a march in solidarity with Israel near The Hague. Thank you to each and every one of you for coming out in support of the hostages and their families.