This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
The Iranian Tehran Times released an alleged recording of the ADL freaking out about the generational divide in Israel support, as well as Iranian influence in anti-Israel advocacy groups. I do not recommend reading the article because it’s literally Iranian propaganda, but the audio recording is on their page here if you scroll down. Do you think this is legitimate or AI-generated? There’s nothing that struck me as obviously wrong with Greenblatt’s voice. It would be a weird thing to fake, because Iran shouldn’t want to promote the idea that they are behind Western anti-Israel advocacy.
If it’s legitimate, it’s insightful in four ways. The ADL does not believe that support for Israel is Left-Right but instead young-old. The ADL believes that some anti-Zionist organizations are taking their talking points from Iran (eg using the term “Zionist entities”). Iran has access to important meetings of ADL members. And lastly, the ADL has access to the inner circle memorandums of anti-Zionist groups.
Given the source I'm suspicious. Even more so it's weird to me how he goes on and on about "Iranian propaganda" in true "omg Russian bots!" fashion as if the Iranian deep state has arms in every American university and anti-Zionists need Iran of all places to tell them Israel is a violent apartheid state. Given the source, again, it seems very complimentary to Iran. On the other hand, if it's a fake it's good in its organic American dialog - no awkwardness or weird translations here.
But assuming it's true. The the thing that jumps out to me is the line: "The number of young people who think Hamas's massacre was justified is shockingly and terrifyingly high".
To me this indicates he drinks his own kool-aid. One of the more annoying things about Israel apologists and Zionists to me is how they constantly attack this weird strawman of anyone that disagrees with them is pro-Hamas. How they repeat Hamas Hamas Hamas like it's a brain virus. It's hilarious to think it's a relatively recent post 2006 phenomenon in Israel-Palestine. The way some people speak it's as if Hamas Hamas Hamas was the singular bad force ruining everything and if it weren't for these ultra-monsters, well shucks, good ol boy Israel wouldn't have to act so bad.
I always assumed it's a talking points memo for public propaganda. It's clearly from the "when did you stop beating your wife" school of distraction & attack. Focus on Hamas and mention it as much as possible. No one wants to defend them, and any talk about them is not talking about all the people Israel is killing while creating a constant negative mental association. Anyway, I have literally never seen this mythical Western pro-Palestinian pro-Hamas "liberal".
Here we see Greenblatt privately believing this psycho BS that the only way anyone could be anti-Zionist is that they are totally fans of Hamas and pro-massacre of civilians. It would never occur to a principled person to notice Zionism's evil actions without being crypto Islamic theocrats. Absurd and wildly detached from the mind of your average Zionist critical secular university aged student. The Zionist equivalent of believing all Trump supporters are literal Nazis.
Even more so it's weird to me how he goes on and on about "Iranian propaganda" in true "omg Russian bots!" fashion as if the Iranian deep state has arms in every American university and anti-Zionists need Iran of all places to tell them Israel is a violent apartheid state
Wasn’t greenblatt a true believer in the Russia narratives? Not surprising he reaches for a similar toolkit.
In general in this conflict do you side more with Israel or Hamas?
48% of those 18-24 said Hamas. Of course siding with Hamas more than Israel doesn't necessarily mean approving of Hamas or of the attack. However there is a question about the attack:
Do you think the Hamas killing of 1200 Israeli civilians on Israel can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians or is it not justified?
51% of 18-24 year olds (and 48% 25-34, and 24% overall) said it can be justified by the grievances of the Palestinians. That said, I am suspicious of these poll results and wonder if they might be because of the specific wording of "can be justified", if some interpreted it as meaning "someone could theoretically make an argument trying to justify it" rather than "I personally think it was just".
It's a bit of a stretch, especially because it corresponds to the general lower level of support for Israel among the young. But some of the other results also call it into question. The prior question had a lower percentage siding with Hamas over Israel. 54% of the same age group (45% overall) answered "Should law firms hire or refuse to hire law students who supported Hamas and the attacks on Israeli civilians?" with refuse to hire, indicating at least 5% who would support blacklisting themselves. (It's pretty striking how support for free-speech in younger generations is so low that support for blacklisting rises even as support for Israel falls.) Or I guess some people might interpret "support" as people donating money to Hamas or something. 62% of those 18-24 say the "attacks on Jews" were genocidal.
I don't know if there's a poll asking about support for the attack with better wording. Best I could find with a quick search was this one which didn't make Hamas/Israel support a binary choice:
22% of college students say they sympathize with Hamas and 26% with the Israeli government
And this one which asks about the attack but again in a potentially ambiguous way, and just college students again:
The poll finds 86% of college students saying they’re aware of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. And of that share, 67% describe the attack as an act of terrorism by Hamas, versus 12% who see it as a justified act of resistance by Hamas. Another 21% describe it as something else other than an act of terrorism or resistance.
I think the role of framing is being underestimated here, and in general. On one hand, sure, Hamas brutally killed over a thousand civilians who presumably were largely innocent beyond whatever guilt they inherit through general support and acceptance of benefits of their country; against the standard of normal morality that most people would claim to subscribe to if asked in a non-charged setting, this was surely unjustified. On the other hand, we are constantly being asked by our authorities to consider it justified that Israel has retaliated by doing the same against Palestinian civilians. You can either try to come up with some additional principle to break the symmetry in favour of Israel's stance (Killing civilians is better when it is done by well-uniformed military members acting professionally than when it is done by shabby guys on pickups? The calculus of retaliation should have a cutoff date somewhere in 2020 so the Israelis can claim to have been attacked first?), or consider both the action and the response justified as many of those 18-24 year olds probably do, or consider neither the action nor the response justified.
At first sight, of course, why not do the last? - but my intuition tells me that this option bumps up against a particular American instinct, captured by the frequently-heard "well, do you have a better idea?" or perhaps even the adjacent "person saying it can't be done should stop bothering person who is actually doing it". Once you have identified something as a problem, whatever countermeasure remains after you have eliminated all the impossible ones must be good, because the alternative would be to shrug and say that nothing can be done which is something for debbie downers, lazy people and those lacking the requisite moral certitude. (I'm reminded of The Quiet American, an early British novel built around calling out the same trait, which at the time hit enough of a nerve that they spitefully made a movie adaptation that inverted its punchline)
On the other hand, we are constantly being asked by our authorities to consider it justified that Israel has retaliated by doing the same against Palestinian civilians.
Are you seriously claiming that the IDF are filming themselves as they go around slaughtering civilians, which is what Hamas did?
Israel was attacked by Hamas, who run the polity of Gaza. Such actions often lead to an unfortunate state called "war". When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Habor, the casualties were only a factor of two higher than in the Hamas attack. (Of course, these attacks differ in other ways, the victims of Pearl Habor were overwhelmingly military, and Imperial Japan had odds of winning which were orders of magnitude better than Hamas, though still not that high overall.)
While I am sure that today's Guardian would have stories without end on the plight the Japanese civilians would suffer during a war with the US and the power of forgiveness, I do not think that it was morally wrong for the US to enter that war. (This does not extend to morale bombings and the nukes -- especially the second one, though.)
In wars, civilians are often killed as a side effect. This is bad, but totally different from going around and beheading people.
Of course, the question if regime change is the strategically best solution for Israel or the world is debatable.
Why was it morally wrong to drop the second nuke, when Japan still appeared to have no intention of surrendering at the time and even went through a failed coup to prevent a surrender after the second one was dropped?
Are you seriously claiming that the IDF are filming themselves as they go around slaughtering civilians, which is what Hamas did?
No, but I consider the main bad thing to be the part where you slaughter civilians, rather than the one where you try to farm internet points for it.
Israel was attacked by Hamas, who run the polity of Gaza. Such actions often lead to an unfortunate state called "war". When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Habor, the casualties were only a factor of two higher than in the Hamas attack. (Of course, these attacks differ in other ways, the victims of Pearl Habor were overwhelmingly military, and Imperial Japan had odds of winning which were orders of magnitude better than Hamas, though still not that high overall.)
That's you doing the "calculus of retaliation should have a cutoff date" thing. Rather than ignoring everything that happened before the Hamas attack this time, we could set the arbitrary cutoff date to be December 26th, 2008 instead, and write the same story flipped starting with "Gaza was attacked by the Israeli government, who run the polity of Israel". If we do not set arbitrary cutoffs, surely the story begins in 1948, when IL was formed as a result of an ethnically cleansing invasion of the remains of Mandatory Palestine.
In wars, civilians are often killed as a side effect. This is bad, but totally different from going around and beheading people.
Sorry, but I do not share this perception that killing civilians by bombing them from afar is somehow better or more tasteful, especially considering that I want to correct for a lifetime of consuming propaganda commissioned by the people who have a monopoly on bombing-civilians-from-afar capabilities to make it appear more tasteful.
(I should make clear that I don't think I'm an anti-IL dogmatic; at this point I would consider "recognise that the International Community does not have the collective moral will or executive power to stop them outright and therefore give IL special dispensation to exterminate their uppity charges once and for all" to be a perfectly acceptable course of action to minimise expected total future suffering.)
On the other hand, we are constantly being asked by our authorities to consider it justified that Israel has retaliated by doing the same against Palestinian civilians
Isn't "killing civilians as part of collateral damage from attacking military targets" very much not "doing the same" as "killing civilians by attacking them intentionally"? Using this as an additional principle seems much more obviously legitimate than the ones you mention, and is what I actually see advocated in public discourse. I'm not accusing you of arguing in bad faith, but does "Killing civilians is better when it is done by well-uniformed military members" not seem like an obvious strawman to you?
Once you have identified something as a problem, whatever countermeasure remains after you have eliminated all the impossible ones must be good, because the alternative would be to shrug and say that nothing can be done
Saying that "nothing can be done" is a part of the ideas implied in "well, do you have a better idea?" There have certainly been a sizable fraction of the population calling for a ceasefire. On the other hand, there are of course those in support of continuing the military operation, who would presumably think this to be the least bad of all options, even with civilian casualties and all. And in that case, the Americans stepping aside and "doing nothing" to stop Israel is exactly what is desired -- it's their conflict, let them have at it.
consider both the action and the response justified as many of those 18-24 year olds probably do
I honestly haven't seen anyone support the right of both Hamas and the IDF to hit their respective populations in this way. Rather,
or consider neither the action nor the response justified.
from what I've seen, this seems to be the most common opinion from the people who want a ceasefire. They don't condone Hamas (the "this is what decolonization looks like" people still appear to only be a fringe minority), but they also can't stand the images of civilian casualties from Israeli attacks.
The alt-right and wignat claim that groups like the ADL are huge hypocrites that support diversity in Western countries but ethno nationalism in Israel is obviously true. It an't even be debated in my opinion. Before they could just call the people pointing this out Nazis (because they were), but now people are seeing Israel for what it actually is and the new people calling it out can't just be dismissed as Nazis so they are being exposed for the hypocrites they are. You can't call all the black people, Muslims, SJWs, LGBTQ+ groups, etc. Nazis when they were on your side the past 8 years fighting white nationalism and Trump or whatever they were up to. Then when they have an apartheid state that kills children and has an open air prison for Palestinians (not saying that's what I believe, but left wing activists do) then the Holocaust sympathy dries up real quick. They know they are in a tough place and this is probably what they have stopped messing with Musk publicly.
You're cherry picking that from their site. I could find a bunch of other posts on there from them that paint them as rabid Zionists. The ADL are huge hypocrites after all. Posts like this are just so they can't be pinned down and people can go see they made this post (that nobody read and wasn't intended to be read). But let's be honest, they have spent a million times as much money and effort attacking Musk these past few years publicly than they ever have in their entire history for Israel. This is also a left/wing Jew/Israel culture war battle. They don't like Netenyahu or Likud. But make no mistake, if you go criticizing Israel publicly and aggressively, the ADL will come for you to smear your character no matter how good your points are and how good your intentions are.
No. Rather, I intentionally looked to see what their position was an an extremely well-known recent controversy specifically about ethnic nationalism in Israel.
But let's be honest, they have spent a million times as much money and effort attacking Musk these past few years publicly than they ever have in their entire history for Israel. This is also a left/wing Jew/Israel culture war battle. They don't like Netenyahu or Likud. But make no mistake, if you go criticizing Israel publicly and aggressively, the ADL will come for you to smear your character no matter how good your points are and how good your intentions are.
I have no doubt that they are assholes, but what does any of that have to do with their views on ethnic nationalism?
And lastly, the ADL has access to the inner circle memorandums of anti-Zionist groups.
This doesn’t seem surprising, given that lots of anti-Zionist groups have crossover support from other very work groups which support the ADL in other contexts.
The ADL does not believe that support for Israel is Left-Right but instead young-old.
This is at least partly true, and given the ADL’s day job of ‘call republicans Nazis’, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t believe it.
Iran has access to important meetings of ADL members.
For a modern intelligence service, this would probably be trivially easy- activists are unlikely to guard their computers like government officials. And Iran has very good reasons to keep an eye on major foreign policy advocacy groups(which the ADL is) in their politically unstable-yet-gridlocked archenemy.
because Iran shouldn’t want to promote the idea that they are behind Western anti-Israel advocacy.
Why not? There are millions of Western young people, as you say, who are now openly very anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. Many of these, however, may still either dislike Iran (eg. because of the Hijab protests) or have no opinion of it.
A core goal of Iranian support for Palestinians is for their own propaganda purposes in the regional geopolitical conflict and with the global Ummah, often as a kind of counter to the Saudi message that they’re the guardians of the two holy cities. Extending that audience to Western leftists would be a big win, so attaching themselves publicly to the pro-Palestinian cause in front of them is a good thing in their eyes.
The more people in the West sympathize with Iran, think Iran is ‘actually doing some good things’ or whatever, the more pressure to lift sanctions etc, at least in this logic.
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Notes -
The Iranian Tehran Times released an alleged recording of the ADL freaking out about the generational divide in Israel support, as well as Iranian influence in anti-Israel advocacy groups. I do not recommend reading the article because it’s literally Iranian propaganda, but the audio recording is on their page here if you scroll down. Do you think this is legitimate or AI-generated? There’s nothing that struck me as obviously wrong with Greenblatt’s voice. It would be a weird thing to fake, because Iran shouldn’t want to promote the idea that they are behind Western anti-Israel advocacy.
If it’s legitimate, it’s insightful in four ways. The ADL does not believe that support for Israel is Left-Right but instead young-old. The ADL believes that some anti-Zionist organizations are taking their talking points from Iran (eg using the term “Zionist entities”). Iran has access to important meetings of ADL members. And lastly, the ADL has access to the inner circle memorandums of anti-Zionist groups.
Given the source I'm suspicious. Even more so it's weird to me how he goes on and on about "Iranian propaganda" in true "omg Russian bots!" fashion as if the Iranian deep state has arms in every American university and anti-Zionists need Iran of all places to tell them Israel is a violent apartheid state. Given the source, again, it seems very complimentary to Iran. On the other hand, if it's a fake it's good in its organic American dialog - no awkwardness or weird translations here.
But assuming it's true. The the thing that jumps out to me is the line: "The number of young people who think Hamas's massacre was justified is shockingly and terrifyingly high".
To me this indicates he drinks his own kool-aid. One of the more annoying things about Israel apologists and Zionists to me is how they constantly attack this weird strawman of anyone that disagrees with them is pro-Hamas. How they repeat Hamas Hamas Hamas like it's a brain virus. It's hilarious to think it's a relatively recent post 2006 phenomenon in Israel-Palestine. The way some people speak it's as if Hamas Hamas Hamas was the singular bad force ruining everything and if it weren't for these ultra-monsters, well shucks, good ol boy Israel wouldn't have to act so bad.
I always assumed it's a talking points memo for public propaganda. It's clearly from the "when did you stop beating your wife" school of distraction & attack. Focus on Hamas and mention it as much as possible. No one wants to defend them, and any talk about them is not talking about all the people Israel is killing while creating a constant negative mental association. Anyway, I have literally never seen this mythical Western pro-Palestinian pro-Hamas "liberal".
Here we see Greenblatt privately believing this psycho BS that the only way anyone could be anti-Zionist is that they are totally fans of Hamas and pro-massacre of civilians. It would never occur to a principled person to notice Zionism's evil actions without being crypto Islamic theocrats. Absurd and wildly detached from the mind of your average Zionist critical secular university aged student. The Zionist equivalent of believing all Trump supporters are literal Nazis.
Wasn’t greenblatt a true believer in the Russia narratives? Not surprising he reaches for a similar toolkit.
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He might be thinking of polls like this Harvard-Harris poll:
48% of those 18-24 said Hamas. Of course siding with Hamas more than Israel doesn't necessarily mean approving of Hamas or of the attack. However there is a question about the attack:
51% of 18-24 year olds (and 48% 25-34, and 24% overall) said it can be justified by the grievances of the Palestinians. That said, I am suspicious of these poll results and wonder if they might be because of the specific wording of "can be justified", if some interpreted it as meaning "someone could theoretically make an argument trying to justify it" rather than "I personally think it was just".
It's a bit of a stretch, especially because it corresponds to the general lower level of support for Israel among the young. But some of the other results also call it into question. The prior question had a lower percentage siding with Hamas over Israel. 54% of the same age group (45% overall) answered "Should law firms hire or refuse to hire law students who supported Hamas and the attacks on Israeli civilians?" with refuse to hire, indicating at least 5% who would support blacklisting themselves. (It's pretty striking how support for free-speech in younger generations is so low that support for blacklisting rises even as support for Israel falls.) Or I guess some people might interpret "support" as people donating money to Hamas or something. 62% of those 18-24 say the "attacks on Jews" were genocidal.
I don't know if there's a poll asking about support for the attack with better wording. Best I could find with a quick search was this one which didn't make Hamas/Israel support a binary choice:
And this one which asks about the attack but again in a potentially ambiguous way, and just college students again:
I think the role of framing is being underestimated here, and in general. On one hand, sure, Hamas brutally killed over a thousand civilians who presumably were largely innocent beyond whatever guilt they inherit through general support and acceptance of benefits of their country; against the standard of normal morality that most people would claim to subscribe to if asked in a non-charged setting, this was surely unjustified. On the other hand, we are constantly being asked by our authorities to consider it justified that Israel has retaliated by doing the same against Palestinian civilians. You can either try to come up with some additional principle to break the symmetry in favour of Israel's stance (Killing civilians is better when it is done by well-uniformed military members acting professionally than when it is done by shabby guys on pickups? The calculus of retaliation should have a cutoff date somewhere in 2020 so the Israelis can claim to have been attacked first?), or consider both the action and the response justified as many of those 18-24 year olds probably do, or consider neither the action nor the response justified.
At first sight, of course, why not do the last? - but my intuition tells me that this option bumps up against a particular American instinct, captured by the frequently-heard "well, do you have a better idea?" or perhaps even the adjacent "person saying it can't be done should stop bothering person who is actually doing it". Once you have identified something as a problem, whatever countermeasure remains after you have eliminated all the impossible ones must be good, because the alternative would be to shrug and say that nothing can be done which is something for debbie downers, lazy people and those lacking the requisite moral certitude. (I'm reminded of The Quiet American, an early British novel built around calling out the same trait, which at the time hit enough of a nerve that they spitefully made a movie adaptation that inverted its punchline)
Are you seriously claiming that the IDF are filming themselves as they go around slaughtering civilians, which is what Hamas did?
Israel was attacked by Hamas, who run the polity of Gaza. Such actions often lead to an unfortunate state called "war". When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Habor, the casualties were only a factor of two higher than in the Hamas attack. (Of course, these attacks differ in other ways, the victims of Pearl Habor were overwhelmingly military, and Imperial Japan had odds of winning which were orders of magnitude better than Hamas, though still not that high overall.)
While I am sure that today's Guardian would have stories without end on the plight the Japanese civilians would suffer during a war with the US and the power of forgiveness, I do not think that it was morally wrong for the US to enter that war. (This does not extend to morale bombings and the nukes -- especially the second one, though.)
In wars, civilians are often killed as a side effect. This is bad, but totally different from going around and beheading people.
Of course, the question if regime change is the strategically best solution for Israel or the world is debatable.
Why was it morally wrong to drop the second nuke, when Japan still appeared to have no intention of surrendering at the time and even went through a failed coup to prevent a surrender after the second one was dropped?
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No, but I consider the main bad thing to be the part where you slaughter civilians, rather than the one where you try to farm internet points for it.
That's you doing the "calculus of retaliation should have a cutoff date" thing. Rather than ignoring everything that happened before the Hamas attack this time, we could set the arbitrary cutoff date to be December 26th, 2008 instead, and write the same story flipped starting with "Gaza was attacked by the Israeli government, who run the polity of Israel". If we do not set arbitrary cutoffs, surely the story begins in 1948, when IL was formed as a result of an ethnically cleansing invasion of the remains of Mandatory Palestine.
Sorry, but I do not share this perception that killing civilians by bombing them from afar is somehow better or more tasteful, especially considering that I want to correct for a lifetime of consuming propaganda commissioned by the people who have a monopoly on bombing-civilians-from-afar capabilities to make it appear more tasteful.
(I should make clear that I don't think I'm an anti-IL dogmatic; at this point I would consider "recognise that the International Community does not have the collective moral will or executive power to stop them outright and therefore give IL special dispensation to exterminate their uppity charges once and for all" to be a perfectly acceptable course of action to minimise expected total future suffering.)
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Isn't "killing civilians as part of collateral damage from attacking military targets" very much not "doing the same" as "killing civilians by attacking them intentionally"? Using this as an additional principle seems much more obviously legitimate than the ones you mention, and is what I actually see advocated in public discourse. I'm not accusing you of arguing in bad faith, but does "Killing civilians is better when it is done by well-uniformed military members" not seem like an obvious strawman to you?
Saying that "nothing can be done" is a part of the ideas implied in "well, do you have a better idea?" There have certainly been a sizable fraction of the population calling for a ceasefire. On the other hand, there are of course those in support of continuing the military operation, who would presumably think this to be the least bad of all options, even with civilian casualties and all. And in that case, the Americans stepping aside and "doing nothing" to stop Israel is exactly what is desired -- it's their conflict, let them have at it.
I honestly haven't seen anyone support the right of both Hamas and the IDF to hit their respective populations in this way. Rather,
from what I've seen, this seems to be the most common opinion from the people who want a ceasefire. They don't condone Hamas (the "this is what decolonization looks like" people still appear to only be a fringe minority), but they also can't stand the images of civilian casualties from Israeli attacks.
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The alt-right and wignat claim that groups like the ADL are huge hypocrites that support diversity in Western countries but ethno nationalism in Israel is obviously true. It an't even be debated in my opinion. Before they could just call the people pointing this out Nazis (because they were), but now people are seeing Israel for what it actually is and the new people calling it out can't just be dismissed as Nazis so they are being exposed for the hypocrites they are. You can't call all the black people, Muslims, SJWs, LGBTQ+ groups, etc. Nazis when they were on your side the past 8 years fighting white nationalism and Trump or whatever they were up to. Then when they have an apartheid state that kills children and has an open air prison for Palestinians (not saying that's what I believe, but left wing activists do) then the Holocaust sympathy dries up real quick. They know they are in a tough place and this is probably what they have stopped messing with Musk publicly.
The ADL opposed the 2018 nation-state law, which means that they oppose ethnic nationalism in Israel.
You're cherry picking that from their site. I could find a bunch of other posts on there from them that paint them as rabid Zionists. The ADL are huge hypocrites after all. Posts like this are just so they can't be pinned down and people can go see they made this post (that nobody read and wasn't intended to be read). But let's be honest, they have spent a million times as much money and effort attacking Musk these past few years publicly than they ever have in their entire history for Israel. This is also a left/wing Jew/Israel culture war battle. They don't like Netenyahu or Likud. But make no mistake, if you go criticizing Israel publicly and aggressively, the ADL will come for you to smear your character no matter how good your points are and how good your intentions are.
No. Rather, I intentionally looked to see what their position was an an extremely well-known recent controversy specifically about ethnic nationalism in Israel.
I have no doubt that they are assholes, but what does any of that have to do with their views on ethnic nationalism?
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This doesn’t seem surprising, given that lots of anti-Zionist groups have crossover support from other very work groups which support the ADL in other contexts.
This is at least partly true, and given the ADL’s day job of ‘call republicans Nazis’, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t believe it.
For a modern intelligence service, this would probably be trivially easy- activists are unlikely to guard their computers like government officials. And Iran has very good reasons to keep an eye on major foreign policy advocacy groups(which the ADL is) in their politically unstable-yet-gridlocked archenemy.
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Why not? There are millions of Western young people, as you say, who are now openly very anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. Many of these, however, may still either dislike Iran (eg. because of the Hijab protests) or have no opinion of it.
A core goal of Iranian support for Palestinians is for their own propaganda purposes in the regional geopolitical conflict and with the global Ummah, often as a kind of counter to the Saudi message that they’re the guardians of the two holy cities. Extending that audience to Western leftists would be a big win, so attaching themselves publicly to the pro-Palestinian cause in front of them is a good thing in their eyes.
The more people in the West sympathize with Iran, think Iran is ‘actually doing some good things’ or whatever, the more pressure to lift sanctions etc, at least in this logic.
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Speaking of, whatever came of the various audio logs the IDF claim to have intercepted? Was there ever any good analysis done on those?
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