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Notes -
New data from Pew on the Israel-Palestinian topic
Negative views of Israel have increased, but in a unique way according to demographics. 50% of Republican-leaning Americans under 50yo have a negative view, up from 35% in 2022. For the Dem-leaning in this age bracket, there’s been only a 3% shift toward negative views. For 50yo+ Republicans, negative views have increased by just 3% to sit at 23%; but for Dems in this age bracket, there’s been a 13% increase to 66%. Most of the shift in the public’s dislike of Israel has occurred among younger Republicans and older Democrats. This is interesting data, because there’s been an idea circulating that the shift in public perception of Israel is driven by younger minority progressives. And while that’s a big part, the data really tells us that Americans have changed their view in recent years in ways unaccounted for by demographic change, but which can be explained by the war. Because in just three years, from 2022 to 2025, we’re seeing huge shifts in regards to views on Israel while demographics have only changed slightly.
I think this shift is clear when looking at the media young people consume. Theo Von inconspicuously doing an “early life check” on the Sackler family in his interview with JD Vance; Shane Gillis on KillTony a few days ago; the popular youth streamer “iShowSpeed” refusing to talk to people if they mention they are Israeli. Pro-Israel Americans need a feasible game plan for dealing with this shift which doesn’t fall victim to the Streisand Effect. The current strategy of deporting foreign national students is bad, because the negative publicity far outweighs the tiny changes on university campuses. Zone of Interest came out in 2023, and our media reported on October 7th crimes well enough, yet these clearly didn’t move the needle on public favorability. There doesn’t appear to be any youth figure who can shift perceptions.
It's fascinating the way people frame what things constitute facts about reality, and what things are supposed to be changeable.
This turn in public opinion was not just entirely predictable given Israel's actions, but it was undoubtedly the plan within Hamas before 10/7. Hamas was never under the impression that they were going to sweep from there to Jerusalem, they were hoping to do something so horrible that Israel would "have" to respond, Israel's response would lead to global backlash against Israel, and bring the conflict back to front of mind.
This was obvious from the word go. The goal from the beginning was to bait Israel into committing atrocities.
Why was world opinion widely treated as something changeable, while Israel's reaction wasn't? "Any country in this position would have to invade!" "You can't expect Israel to restrain itself!" "People need to realize that Israel has the right to defend itself!"
It's interesting to me that people who frame themselves as hard-nosed-unemotional-realists refuse to accept public opinion as an aspect of reality. Especially for Israel, a country that has always depended on western public opinion. I guess we need to have someone write a popular Warhammer 40k fanfic in which a grizzled commissar with some kind of cyberpunk eye patch gives a speech about sacrificing lives for public opinion gains, and then it will fit into their framing of themselves as hard-nosed-unemotional-realists.
I'm realizing that realism is just a different form of woolly headed idealism. In the same way they decry foreign policy idealists who want to see a rules based international order, they live in an imaginary world where war is the only reality and might makes right.
I disagree regarding Israel’s options in terms of domestic politics (accommodation with the Palestinians became politically impossible after the early 2000s and ‘mowing the grass’ was politically impossible after October 7th), but you are right as far as political science, certainly.
‘Realism’ is just idealism by another name. The realist has his own ideology, how can he not? To put it another way, realism is really just the purest form of small-l classical liberalism in geopolitics. Everyone is a rational game theory actor responding to incentives, everyone is actions in their own rational self interest. This is no less fictive than the ideology of the ‘rules-based international order’ - in fact it is more fictional, because proponents of the latter typically admit they actually have some kind of ideology. The realist just thinks he is a cool, casual observer, the chopper pilot on the last helicopter out of Saigon, shrugging, “it is what it is” even as he believes in so many grand myths of his own. It’s like that political compass meme, right, the radical centrist, the “grill pill” has no less complex and ideological a philosophy than the ancap or the communist of the fascist.
To go back to the subject at hand, Israel anywhere else would have failed, Israel where it is can probably never succeed. As I said before, its survival this long was improbable at the moment of its founding, it was always skating on thin ice. I don’t believe acquiescing to Palestinian demands, not in the 1970s, nor in the 1990s, not today, would save it. Like the realists, the Arabs see themselves as a martial people; they can smell weakness. Whether Israel does it by choice or at gunpoint, any concessions will only hasten its collapse.
What does politically impossible mean? It always seems to mean something like "restraint was impossible without ending Bibi Netanyahu's political career." Which isn't something that I think we need to value all that highly in terms of impossibility. We wouldn't accept, in a wartime situation, saying "It's impossible to take that position" when what we mean is "it's impossible to take the position without suffering casualties." If Bibi isn't patriotic enough to take one for Israel, history should hold him accountable for that.
In what way is this operation not just another example of mowing the grass? Even accepting the absurd maximalist goal of "eliminating Hamas;" let's imagine that Hamas ceases to be a going concern, does anyone really think we won't see a new terrorist organization form? Israel may not be mowing the grass, but they are fertilizing it.
If a violent response was necessary, it had to be done in three months. Dragging it out over multiple years has been foolish.
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