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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   10381 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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I wasn't critiquing the Grey Lady in particular here. I very much doubt the author of this specific article would dispute that Hamas committed sexual violence on October 7th. I'm critiquing the double standard among woke leftists, who demand exhaustive beyond-reasonable-doubt proof when a member of their in-group is accused of sexual misconduct, but when a member of their out-group is accused of sexual misconduct, even hearsay is deemed sufficient to condemn them.

None of this requires you to support Israel, think Israel isn't committing a "genocide", think Israel isn't a settler-colonial apartheid state, think the Palestinians don't have a legitimate grievance etc. You're welcome to think the IDF is just as bad (or even worse) than the people they're fighting. You can sympathise with the Palestinians (even sympathise with Hamas) while acknowledging that Hamas committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on October 7th. But you do, in fact, have to acknowledge that Hamas committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on October 7th. That part is not open for debate.

And it is absolutely not a strawman to say that some woke leftists, pro-Palestinians or Joo-posters will deny to this day that Hamas committed any sexual violence at all on October 7th. I have personally met these people. I may have been dunking on a weakman, but I was not dunking on a strawman and I quite resent that accusation.

Ontological status: If you rape your enemies, they win.

You're not describing a double standard insofar as you can observe this exact same behavior from JIDF posters. Where mass rape on Oct.7 definitely happened and is super important, but these rapes did not, or don't really matter. It's just the standard.

So maybe we are looking at some motivated reasoning that can afflict us all. Rather than a specific trait of the woke left. And perhaps you're not dunking on a strawman, but what are you dunking on, and to what end? The motivated reasoning of one side irks you, but not the other?

So no, the woke left don't have to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on Oct.7 anymore than the JIDF has to acknowledge that Israel is a a genocidal nazi state that commits acts of unspeakable cruelty in their prisons. You hold no leverage to make that claim. You are just asserting a one sided rhetorical frame on woke leftists. They would be right to recognize what you are doing, call you a genocidal zionist and continue on inside their bubble where Israel is bad and Palestine is good.

Rape denialism is inexcusable coming from anyone, but particularly hypocritical coming from individuals whose catchphrase was "believe women" for the better part of a decade.

And my point would be that it's not particularly hypocritical when those individuals are just playing the same game everyone else is. Including Israel, that is not really concerned with whatever amount of dead or raped Palestinians they leave in their wake. I mean, I don't think the worst part of that is the hypocrisy but whatever.

I, for one, do not assign zero moral value to members of my outgroup. While I accept that the average Israeli is probably more likely to take seriously accusations of rape made against Palestinians than accusations made against Israelis – I do nonetheless believe that the modal Israeli assigns greater moral value to members of his outgroup than the modal Palestinian does. Call me a Zionist shill if you must, that's what I believe.

I do nonetheless believe that the modal Israeli assigns greater moral value to members of his outgroup than the modal Palestinian does.

According to one n>2000 poll, if you're willing to equate judgments of the other side's "humanity" with judgments of their moral worth, the modal Israeli and Palestinian assign each other equal moral worth, namely 0/100:

The results show one of the most symmetrical mirror images – each side almost completely dehumanizes the other, and completely humanizes itself. This is another indication of mutual zerosum attitudes not only towards the conflict but at the human level. When characterizing their side, 83% of the Palestinians selected the number 80 or higher and 17% selected numbers less than 80. On average, Palestinians gave themselves a score of 88 out of 100 on the humanity scale. When characterizing the Israeli side, only 1% selected the number 80 or higher; 71% selected the number 0 and 27% selected a number between 1 and 50. On average, Palestinians gave Israeli Jews a score of 6 out of 100 on the humanity scale.

...However, Jewish Israeli views regarding the humanity of Palestinians show sweeping negative assessments, as a mirror image of the Palestinian view of Israeli Jews. Just 2.7% give a score above 80 for Palestinians. 92% give a score of 50 or lower; and among those, 42% gave the lowest possible score (zero). The average score was 14 (from 0-100). The portion who gave a score of zero to Palestinians regarding levels of humanity is higher among settlers (56%), and highest among the ultra-Orthodox (70%). There is hardly any difference between traditionalists and national religious Israelis – 57% ad 58%, respectively, give Palestinians a score of zero humanity, and 41% of seculars. The age gap is also prominent: 59% of young Israeli Jews (18-34) gave a score of zero, compared to 41% of those 55 and above.

Jewish Israelis are apparently slightly less inclined to dehumanize Palestinians than vice versa, but it's risible to suggest that the average (let alone the modal) Israeli is deeply moved by high-minded European notions about the intrinsic value of human life in their attitude towards Palestinians.

I'm going to have to plead "revealed preferences".

Insofar as I can tell, the revealed preferences match the preferences stated in this study.

Well, that just seems preposterous. Hamas's strategy of employing Gazan civilians as human shields by stashing combatants and armaments in civilian facilities (hospitals, schools, mosques etc.) is well-established. The only reason they employ this strategy is because they know that the IDF (and the broader Israeli population, by extension) assigns a nonzero value to the lives of Gazan civilians and would prefer not to kill them if possible.

Fine, fine, you'll say the IDF doesn't really care about Gazan civilians' lives, but know that it would be bad optics in the eyes of the international community to kill them willy-nilly. But assigning a greater-than-zero value to the lives of Gazan civilians for reasons of pragmatism and realpolitik (as opposed to "high-minded European notions about the intrinsic value of human life") is still assigning them a greater-than-zero value to their lives. It's telling that this is an asymmetric strategy: no Hamas leader or foot-soldier is going to hesitate before attacking an Israeli military installation out of concern for civilian collateral damage.

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