If these people did have any commitment to a Palestinian state they'd recognize that Hamas' action has set that cause back decades, from an already terrible-looking position. The key factor in getting the Palestinians a better shake has always been Israeli public opinion, given that the security fears of Israelis are what drives persecution of the Palestinians. Given that the shitposting and Islamist left don't seem to recognize this, we can only conclude that they don't want to see a Palestinian state but a lot of dead Israelis. I doubt they've thought that far for themselves, though.
A very good piece, and I agree entirely with almost every word. I'd dispute the description of StW as influential, though - even when Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party it had no real influence anywhere.
Before the horrific events of recent days a couple of lifetime lefty friends had told me of their disillusionment with what the left has become. The numbers of such people can only grow. It would be good if the vile absurdities you have noted accelerate that process.
I do not believe that Leftist hostility to Israel is even primarily about a concern for the Palestinian people. The real driver is to signal that your narcissistic (and privileged) little wonderful self is ever on the side of 'the oppressed'. To these people 'oppression' is a shallow abstraction that serves to inflate their personal vanity as one of the good guys. This poisonous vanity has been pouring out of Western academia for decades. I still remember the drug-addled anti-Zionist 'sit-in' at my UK university in 1972.
Bravo - brilliantly written and articulates the real horror of seeing soi-dissant progressives applaud the vilest acts.
Fantastic and very relevant Nietzsche quote about self-hatred - one small correction, in English "Aurora" is most commonly known as "Daybreak" or "Dawn" (I didn't recognise Aurora at at all at first!).
Thank you, reminded me how godawful academics were after 9/11.
We had books on why terrorists were so misanthropic, so hopefully in 10 years we'd have bestsellers too on why academics and journalists are misanthropes.
The thing is the grieving families are using their grief to justify genocide. So yeah pointing out the full context is necessary; the people opposing it usually just want to herd the other side into gas chambers
The Israeli grieving families are justifying genocide? Could we have some proof for this amazing assertion? The grieving families I know in Israel are waiting for the body of their loved one to be released for burial, or are going to the funeral, or are sitting shiva. Perhaps some of the malign cabinet members in Israel like Ben-Gvir are saying awful things like that, but the grieving families have better things to do.
Nope. It’s pretty much true. the palestinians lived there for centuries with food water and in many ways a civil relationship. The Israelis' own records show that most Palestinians were directly expelled by Israel in 48, and that the Yishuv planned it from the start. They then offered table scraps and when the Palestinians rightly said no they unleashed cruelty that would make the nazis proud.
You pretend it started on Octover 7th. It started in 1883, when the first jewish pilgrims treated palestinians like animals and made clear they hoped to expel them
If these people did have any commitment to a Palestinian state they'd recognize that Hamas' action has set that cause back decades, from an already terrible-looking position. The key factor in getting the Palestinians a better shake has always been Israeli public opinion, given that the security fears of Israelis are what drives persecution of the Palestinians. Given that the shitposting and Islamist left don't seem to recognize this, we can only conclude that they don't want to see a Palestinian state but a lot of dead Israelis. I doubt they've thought that far for themselves, though.
A very good piece, and I agree entirely with almost every word. I'd dispute the description of StW as influential, though - even when Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party it had no real influence anywhere.
Before the horrific events of recent days a couple of lifetime lefty friends had told me of their disillusionment with what the left has become. The numbers of such people can only grow. It would be good if the vile absurdities you have noted accelerate that process.
I do not believe that Leftist hostility to Israel is even primarily about a concern for the Palestinian people. The real driver is to signal that your narcissistic (and privileged) little wonderful self is ever on the side of 'the oppressed'. To these people 'oppression' is a shallow abstraction that serves to inflate their personal vanity as one of the good guys. This poisonous vanity has been pouring out of Western academia for decades. I still remember the drug-addled anti-Zionist 'sit-in' at my UK university in 1972.
It's the self confidence coupled with crushing intellectual and moral mediocrity that makes these people so truly irritating.
“The west is always wrong” is the only ideology these ppl have
Bravo - brilliantly written and articulates the real horror of seeing soi-dissant progressives applaud the vilest acts.
Fantastic and very relevant Nietzsche quote about self-hatred - one small correction, in English "Aurora" is most commonly known as "Daybreak" or "Dawn" (I didn't recognise Aurora at at all at first!).
Every damn word of this! Bravo! 👏👏👏
Thank you
Thank you, reminded me how godawful academics were after 9/11.
We had books on why terrorists were so misanthropic, so hopefully in 10 years we'd have bestsellers too on why academics and journalists are misanthropes.
I would have thought the New Statesman article was a parody, if I hadn’t linked from here.
The thing is the grieving families are using their grief to justify genocide. So yeah pointing out the full context is necessary; the people opposing it usually just want to herd the other side into gas chambers
The Israeli grieving families are justifying genocide? Could we have some proof for this amazing assertion? The grieving families I know in Israel are waiting for the body of their loved one to be released for burial, or are going to the funeral, or are sitting shiva. Perhaps some of the malign cabinet members in Israel like Ben-Gvir are saying awful things like that, but the grieving families have better things to do.
Nope. It’s pretty much true. the palestinians lived there for centuries with food water and in many ways a civil relationship. The Israelis' own records show that most Palestinians were directly expelled by Israel in 48, and that the Yishuv planned it from the start. They then offered table scraps and when the Palestinians rightly said no they unleashed cruelty that would make the nazis proud.
You pretend it started on Octover 7th. It started in 1883, when the first jewish pilgrims treated palestinians like animals and made clear they hoped to expel them