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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   31911 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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Thanks for always posting these stories! I'm curious how the pro-Palestine monoculture you describe comes to be in the UK - is this stance already the predominant one in their media? Here in Germany, every mainstream outlet is solidly pro-Israel, and since COVID at the latest media skepticism has become right-coded. As a result, we get some wild right-side-of-history positions like "we should let Israel do its thing and take in all the Palestinians as refugees here", along with vegan housecat fantasies that Israel and Palestine could get along if Bibi just were replaced by a proper left-wing leader.

I'm far from an expert on the topic, but it seems to be that the following might be true:

  1. Brits hold a far greater amount of what can be best described as "white guilt", and are more likely to express remorse for colonial misadventures. I think the exhibition I just saw, putting some random Punjabi woman of no particular importance in the limelight, it's a symptom of various attempts to make amends. It is very easy for people to pattern-match Israel into the colonial oppressor, and Palestine into the plucky underdog. There are a lot of bleeding-heart libs around. I might be rather liberal in my worldview, but I'm also very hard-nosed.

  2. Opinion polls show that the average Briton is rather divided between the two options. But the younger you go, the more pro-Palestinian they get. And the young are far more likely to be activists attempting to rally the troops. Those geriatrics clinging to their youth I mentioned earlier aren't likely to be the people graffiting slogans. Supporting Israel in that demographic is very uncool, but it's not like there isn't any strong support at all, they've got their share of lobbyists and adherents in the halls of power. So my impression is that there's a Palestinian groundswell going up against an Israeli entrenched government.

  3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c207p54m4rqt A quick browse of the BBC suggests relative neutrality but a noticeable lean towards Palestine.

Thanks for always posting these stories!

You're welcome!

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