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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3265 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 12, 2024

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Are there any major bloggers in the rat-sphere who are significantly pro-Palestine, anti-Israel? I think everyone I follow is either pro-Israel or basically neutral

Robert Wright is not exactly in the ratsphere and isn't exactly "anti-Israel" per se, but he's the closest one that comes to mind.

I was trying to come up with some candidates, and for a split-second thought, "Scott Aaronson seems pretty emotional and prone to poor decision-making on political topics. Maybe him?"

Lol. Well, I was half right.

I don't know if Sam Kriss counts as rat-sphere.

I never heard of him before, but I read a couple of his Palestine posts, and a couple on other topics. I wouldn't really call him rat-ty from what I've seen, he seems to really beat around the bush a lot and then not even offer clear conclusions and solutions when he's done. He follows the leftist intellectual playbook of pointing out something terrible, waxing poetic of how we really need to stop that terrible thing, but then not actually offer any alternatives or ways to implement a solution. He had a post where he used Fidel Castro's death as imagery for how the today's state of Cuba is the death of revolutionary socialism, since Cuba today is an example of how even best case scenario socialism has rather pathetic results compared to the average capitalist democracy. But he didn't seem to actually seem to stop being a leftist or start advocating for democratic capitalism, instead the piece was just mourning socialism's death without actually abandoning socialism.

I might be misunderstanding him, but I'd place that entirely on him for not being more clear, I shouldn't have to do literary analysis on a political commentator.

I think there are so many overlapping drivers of pro-Israel sentiment in the “ratsphere” (many Jews, the scene was largely founded by Jews, respect for Jewish inventions, Israelis as disproportionately active in tech/AI research, general dislike for religious Muslims, contempt for wokeness, dislike of student protestors) that it would seem unlikely for there to be any significant number.

The three core predictors of support for Palestine vs Israel are being Muslim, being leftist/‘woke’ and having a broadly low opinion of Jews. I’ve never met a strongly anti-Israel person who fell into none of those three categories.

It also relates back to the tendency for Rats to engage publicly in performative utilitarianism, which seems to be the order of the day among Pro-Israel supporters to begin with.

I think Darryl Cooper (MartyrMade podcast/Twitter) probably qualifies. If he's a generalized anti-Semite, it doesn't come across in the podcast. His personal politics are hard-right and I don't think he has any particular affinity for Muslims or ire against Jews.

The three core predictors of support for Palestine vs Israel are being Muslim, being leftist/‘woke’ and having a broadly low opinion of Jews. I’ve never met a strongly anti-Israel person who fell into none of those three categories.

I'm curious how you would fit Irish anti-Israel sentiment into that model? I'm not sure Ireland as a whole is particularly woke, and @Folamh3 makes a decent case against it having much to do with the other two factors you mention.

Irish nationalism has been broadly leftist for a long time. Sinn Fein is an explicitly socialist party, and advocated quasi-revolutionary socialism until relatively recently. Ireland’s pro-Palestinian activism is based on perceived shared oppression by Anglo imperialists, it is inherently quite leftist (much like other European separatist movements, eg. in Catalonia). I would guess that if you polled the Irish, extreme pro-Palestinian sentiment would be highly correlated with political leftism.

Sinn Fein is an explicitly socialist party, and advocated quasi-revolutionary socialism until relatively recently.

Sure, but Sinn Féin only represents a portion of Irish nationalism. Aside from the minority of socialists who took part in the fighting in 1916/1919-21 they are basically the only explicitly socialist Irish nationalists worth mentioning, and they had very little presence in the Republic of Ireland until quite recently.

Anti-colonialism.

If you look at Irish history, they had settlement and land expropriation from their stronger, religiously distinct, ultra-Western neighbour. They had vicious and protracted wars with Britain, insurgency, atrocities and terrorism.

It's quite similar to Palestine v Israel. More Western vs less Western, stronger vs weaker, religious conflict, land confiscation. Britain has been closely aligned with Israel since Suez.

There was some interesting overlap ( 1, 2 ) between the early zionists and Irish nationalists, back when both causes involved fighting the British (often it was the same British commanders and troops who fought in Ireland and then Palestine).

I wonder if it’s a case of anti-Israel sentiment in Ireland is just not considered any different to disapproval of the actions of other countries? The American government was hated as much in Ireland for the Iraq war as the Israeli government is in Gaza (anger over American troops passing through Shannon airport was an issue for years), same for Russia in Ukraine, but nobody treats this as some moral failing.

For what it's worth I disagree that Ireland isn't "particularly woke". I mean, the general population finds wokeness bizarre and alienating, but that's true of every country in which wokeness has found any kind of purchase: it's an ideology by and for the elites, and for the most part the elites in Ireland are just as woke as in any other Anglophone nation. We have self-ID (and the attendant rows about males in women's prisons and sports); controversies over youth gender medicine; massive BLM protests in 2020; the incidence of words like "racism", "transphobia", "homophobia" etc. in our two national newspapers has skyrocketed since 2010, and demands for draconian hate speech legislation - in short, everything you'd expect from a woke nation. The point I was trying to make is that Irish support for the Palestinian cause predates Ireland's great awokening by decades, and pro-Palestine marches were a common sight to see long before anyone here had heard of a preferred pronoun.

I also think @2rafa is being a bit sweeping by putting a slash between leftist and woke. Many wokes are liberals, many leftists are not wokes, although they do both tend to favour the Palestinian cause if for different reasons.

To clarify, I didn't mean to suggest that Ireland is especially anti-woke, rather that my sense is that the reach of progressive politics in the country is similar to that of most other anglo nations, which mirrors what you say. Hence this wouldn't serve to explain the difference in intensity of anti-Israel feelings between Ireland and say Australia. Of course, you've given the historical argument, and I suppose I was curious whether @2rafa would have appended something covering this to her list of factors predicting anti-Israel attitudes or whether she'd have a differing position.

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