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I'm pretty antagonistic towards Israel myself, I'm even rather critical of the attitudes that non-Israeli Jewish people tend to have, but this is plainly not how I remember it. I remember an immediate and massive outpouring of support for Palestine, and not just from the immigrant Muslim population, and Jewish people frantically trying to get the barest condemnation of the attack, out of people they thought were their friends.
I don't doubt that there were plenty of far-left morons who engaged in Palestinian flag waving immediately, but in a country of 330 million you can always find plenty of people to take an indefensible position, along with a news media and internet environment incentivized to convincing you that these ideas are mainstream. But this wasn't a position that was taken in polite society. Noted far left radical Joe Biden (Trump's words, not mine) immediately committed to supporting Israel, as did virtually every Democratic politician. Even actual far-left radicals like AOC and Ilhan Omar condemned the attacks. The only politician who didn't was Rashida Tlaib, who in addition to being far-left is actually Palestinian. Ditto news agencies; I can't recall any mainstream commentators saying as much as that the attacks were the regrettable result of decades of occupation and blockade. The only place I heard that was Democracy Now!, and even they were inclined to engage in a lot of throat clearing.
But your original claim was that "it was very difficult to be pro-Palestine", so what difficulties have these people ran into? Once Trump got elected they managed to push through some "muh antisemitism" policies and some people got expelled / deported / otherwise cancelled, but that wasn't in the immediate after math of 10/7, and didn't amount to much anyway.
I mean, if the news media and internet environment was such that it could convince people that these ideas are mainstream, than these ideas are mainstream. When ideas are not mainstream, what you see is a crackdown like when people criticized Covid policies and vaccines, mass migration, or genderwang stuff.
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I mean, are you sure that pro-palestine opinion wasn't allowed in polite society in the immediate aftermath? Far left views- farther left than actual elected officials- do not effectively exclude individuals from polite society in the same way that merely right of center views sometimes do.
You're correct that the establishment loved Israel for about a month. But virtually no effort was taken to exclude far-left antisemites(yes, many of these people are antisemitic- in the same way they're anti-white) for the same reason virtually no effort was taken to exclude far leftists of many other varieties. We live in a society which has systematically dismantled its memetic immune system for lefty ideas, and 'anti-semitism' is a welcome correction- even if some of these people are nothing of the sort.
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There were massively rallies in support of Gaza around the world right after it happened including in NY. I don’t know what the other poster is on about.
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