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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023

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All this person had to do was shut up until Israel messes up and kills civilians in their counter attack and they could have gone back to larping as a freedom fighter while working on Wall Street.

Israel has already done this. Israel has already been doing this for some time, including shooting unarmed journalists. They even sent police to physically assault the pallbearers of her coffin during her funeral (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/24/un-israelis-fired-shots-that-killed-journalist-abu-akleh). It isn't like Hamas' latest attack is some sudden new change in the conflict - the Israelis already have done all the things you have said they should have waited for them to do, and has repeatedly been doing these things for years, rape included. While I absolutely agree that this person is larping as a freedom fighter despite having one of the most privileged positions in the country (if you are even a contender for a job in BIGLAW you are actually privileged in the real sense of the word), if I try to see things from their perspective it isn't particularly hard to understand.

From everything I know about modern day left wing political ideology, it is very clearly diametrically opposed to almost everything about the state of Israel. Israel is a white supremacist (jews do not get to renounce white privilege), colonial ethnostate that is brutally oppressing people of colour, while at the same time being extremely friendly towards Trump and the republican party. Left-wing activists frequently and publicly compare the treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid in South Africa, a regime that they condemned and boycotted in no uncertain terms. Israel is a far, FAR greater example of the kind of things that modern left wing politics define themselves in opposition to than any European society or indeed America itself. I'm not one of them, but if you're ensconced in that ideology, Israel is already practically an illegitimate state. Why then would you not celebrate one of the most visible incarnations of a political ideology you hate receiving violent resistance? Factor in the left-wing idolisation of figures like Che Guevara and a shift in attitude towards "punching nazis" being an admirable activity and this all makes sense from their perspective.

From the point of view of the western left and centre-left, Israel is also just a really right-wing country in a way which makes it less sympathetic. The only reason why the current (until the formation of the national unity war government) "National Camp" coalition between the right, the far right and the religious right doesn't have a permanent majority is that Naftali Bennett is outraged by Bibi's corruption - if Likud dumped him for a non-crooked leader then there would be a solid 55% of the vote for aligned right-wing parties. And the principal opposition comes from the liberal centre-right (Yesh Atid) and a bunch of retired generals (what is left of Blue & White).