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Notes -
The attack on Israel as the Right's George Floyd Moment
I wanted to make this a more fleshed-out post, but I'm swamped with midterms at the moment
Post-2020 George Floyd, there was a massive unification around BLM, defund the police, etc. I think we all remember some of the worst parts of that dynamic: the media deciding 'moral clarity' was necessary instead of providing both sides. Of those skeptical of the defund the police movement, only the worst/least coherent voices were elevated ("weakmanning"). People who didn't believe in the narrative were decried as the 'worst people', there were calls to fire people who made statements outside of the Orthodoxy, etc. Blanket characterization of the motivations of the other side as 'bigotry', 'racism', etc without further investigation
Does anyone else have the feeling the same thing is happening with regards to Israel? I used to like Bari Weiss' The Free Press (or, Common Sense when it started out), precisely because they were willing to challenge orthodoxies, and dive into the motivations of those who had controversial thoughts. However,it seems the same belief in 'critical thinking' is not applied to Israel; the worst of the pro-Palestine protests are elevated (photos of the swastika being held up, people chanting gas the Jews, etc), and broad characterization of the motives of anyone who does not strongly condemn the other side as anti-semitic. Now, while I do think there are anti-semites on the pro-palestine side in the traditional sense, due to the long history of tensions between muslims/jews, I do think there are many American liberals that are actual self-consistent about this and do not support the attacks because they hate Jews. I saw a tweet perfectly capturing this, that if Natives had done a similar attacks on Americans, they would have supported it, even if they had been a victim. Thus, I think it's actually broadly wrong to decry it as anti-semitism, as it points at some deeper pathologies in the left that deserve to be explored and interregated. I get why Bari is perhaps arguing - this is a moment that "requires" moral clarity - but I think we see what happens when we let the media be the one that makes those decisions. I'm sure the NYT employees post-George Floyd had the exact same feeling, and from an epistomological perspective, this feeling is not hard enough evidence to abandon the key journalistic principles of approaching the other side in good faith, allowing each side to make the best case for its side, etc.
I am also seeing a strong (and intentional) attempt to enforce consenus by many on the right/anti-woke/center left. Screencaps of professors/employees/leadership saying things that are out of the desired consensus, @tting their institution to get their attention, etc. People who are skeptical of certain aspects and express that skepticism of the narrative (the beheaded babies) are screencapped and shared as 'the worst people'. Does this remind anyone of what happened to those who were simply skeptical of the narrative that American police were on some racist killing spree, and demanded to see harder evidence?
In short, I see three things happening:
I am strongly Pro-Israel and anti-Hamas (with sympathy for the Palestinians caught in this), but I hate this dynamic, I hated it when it happened on the left, and it's disappointing to see it happen on the right and the "anti-cancel culture"/centrist left.
Edit: Fixed typo "I like the same 'critical thinking' believe is not applied to Israel" -> "It seems the same 'critical thinking' is not applied to Israel"
I understand your point, but isn't the obvious comparison much more 9/11 than George Floyd? Yeah, there's a bunch of event-induced psychosis going around, but at least the event is genuinely one of the most horrifying things to happen in a first-world country. The scale of maiming, rape, murder, and torture is indisputably large even if a few claims (the beheading babies one) will turn out to be questionable. In contrast, George Floyd was one crackhead idiot that died because he acted like a crackhead idiot and ran into the wrong cop that showed callous indifference to his apparent suffering. That triggering a nationwide outpouring of rage with dozens dead in riots and billions of damage done to cities was pretty striking. At least 9/11 and YomKippur2.0 were the kinds of things that would cause any neurotypical person to get pretty angry in response.
Also of note, mild dissidence isn't resulting in massive condemnation, it's approval of Hamas that's getting that retort. Maybe you think people that say, "by any means necessary" in support of Palestine shouldn't be on the butt end of cultural harshness either, but they would be the equivalent of someone saying, "good, we need a thousand George Floyds dead in the street", not someone mildly questioning what exactly the Minneapolis Police policy is with regard to restraint.
Some of the Squad have tried both-sidesism, and the Biden administration called them disgraceful and repugnant.
I think the US domestic politics of this is going to be totally blown up now Trump has called Hezbollah "smart". I assume it was a gaffe, but Trump being Trump he isn't going to walk it back. Absent the Trump gaffe, it would have been an obvious good partisan move for the right to keep pointing at suitable targets at the left and complaining they hadn't denounced Hamas loudly enough (whether or not it was true).
I don't think both-sidesism is mild dissidence. I vigorously object to the idea that there is symmetry between the two sides of this conflict. We can see this pretty clearly and easily by noting the use of human shields by Hamas and then imagining how effective such a strategy would be for Israelis. Talaib said:
Maybe it's not of the "we need a thousand Floyds" variety, but it's of the "well, he did have it coming though" variety. Seriously, imagine issuing a statement the day after the Floyd killing that said, "I grieve the deaths of both black people and police officers". OK, you can do that, but feeling the need to stipulate it in that moment makes it pretty clear what someone thinks about it.
Why imagine? There's documented claims of the Israelis using Palestinians as human shields for years, so they clearly think there's something to the tactic.
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