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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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It seems to be every international org, and every unbiased org, any unaffiliated with Israel, that have been testifying the same thing. Why would Swedes or Japanese or American Baptists all be lying? The UN, in the link at #3, is saying that their own staff face hunger and “hospitals have admitted people in a state of severe exhaustion caused by a lack of food.”

Israel has always been disliked by basically everyone because "Jews" aside from American conservatives who either A) Recognized Islam as a greater threat; or B) Were religious fellas hoping for a restoration of the holy land, eventually. Or maybe the rapture.

There are very few actual option in this situation. Gazans, by a vast majority, want a genocide of Israel. Israeli's are a split bunch, some want genocide of Gaza, some want peace, and some want to genocide themselves. The people who want peace cant get it. So long as no magical entity comes and brainwashes the Gazans into thinking Jews are cool and good neighbors (see, for example, the fictional jutsu kotoamtsukami it will continue to be. We then are left with two permanent solutions, being genocide of either side. Lay down your chips, which would you prefer?

Israel has always been disliked by basically everyone

I disagree with "always".

Israel was popular with the pro-establishment left well into the 1980s, even in countries where the pro-establishment left wasn't dominated by Jews. The Yes, Minister sketch about Israel-Palestine has Hacker and the politicians being pro-Israel because it is the moderate, popular position and Sir Humphrey and the Deep State being pro-Palestine because they want to make nice to the Gulf Arabs. (This was back when the Gulf Arab monarchies were as anti-Israel as the rest of the Arab world). Pro-establishment right attitudes to Israel used to depend on how much the pro-establishment right favoured making nice to the Gulf Arabs for cynical oil-politics reasons vs standing up for Western values.

Why? A combination of Cold War politics (Israel's worst enemies where Soviet clients), Holocaust guilt, straightforward preference for civilisation over barbarism, and a belief among non-Communist socialists that Israel back when Labour was the natural party of government was a socialist success story.

What changed? The Cold War ended, post-colonial guilt replaced Holocaust guilt, the era where Israel was a plucky underdog receded into history, changes in Israeli domestic politics made it less sympathetic to Western leftists (and, increasingly, with the rise of religious Zionism and the increasing influence of true-believing Orthodox Judaism, fans of Western civilisation more generally), the humanitarian situation for Palestinians in the West Bank (for which Israel is to blame) and Gaza (for which Israel is widely but unfairly blamed) got worse after the failure of Oslo compared to pre-Oslo.

A) Recognized Islam as a greater threat; or B) Were religious fellas hoping for a restoration of the holy land, eventually. Or maybe the rapture.

Ot C) see Christianity as having developed from Judaism and consider themselves culturally tied to Jews. Also, they are more likely to be politically conservative which means they support American allies.

Supporting Israel because it brings about the Rapture is basically a weakman.