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A few days ago, a Jewish event at UC Berkeley was violently shut down and now an upcoming event with Tzipi Livni at UCLA is being moved online for fear of violent disruptions. Worth noting that Ms. Livni is a liberal secularist with a history of arguing for the necessity of negotiations and a path to peace.
How representative are these of a broader shift against Israel within the left? The polls are mixed. On the one hand, the US public appears to be overwhelmingly favoring Israel over Hamas (>80%), but I am not sure if this means as much as Israel's supporters claim. I've seen many pro-Palestinians and anti-Zionists denounce Hamas for other reasons and I got the sense that not all of them were for sake of optics. And even many who refuse to condemn Hamas do so out of a "an oppressed people has a right to resist" framework rather than a genuine sympathy for the group.
It's worth recalling that even before Oct 7th, the sympathies for Israel among democrats in America were collapsing. My sense is that this trend was halted - and perhaps even reversed somewhat - in the immediate aftermath of the attack but soon began to resume its plunge. It now appears to be very difficult for even liberal Zionists to get a fair hearing among only Jewish audiences on progressive campuses, let alone to a wider public.
While it is true that the core groups making these interruptions are small and heavily concentrated among muslim and "POC" demographics, along with a few white leftists, what's remarkable to me is the wider silence among the broader progressive coalition. Many Jews have remarked upon this, that sympathy seems to be muted or even absent. There is an unwillingness to police these radicals among the wider liberal public, which seems to suggest a hidden reserve of silent sympathy which is not being publicly expressed.
The former AIPAC president Steve Rosen once said that the Israel lobby is like a nightflower: it best operates in the shade. That is now becoming impossible as progressives with a national profile such as AOC are publicly likening them to NRA. Another very important principle has been bipartisan support. Israel needs Western backing and among all Western countries, the US stands heat and shoulder above the rest. America was unique among Western countries that Israel had broad support among both the left and right for so long, whereas in Europe the left gave up on Israel early. The UK Labour party's Keir Starmer may try to resurrect matters after the Corbyn years, but one gets the sense he is fighting against his own base which is usually not ending well for leaders in the long run.
But this exceptionalism now appears to coming to a close as well. Support for Israel among the right-wing is as strong as ever, but being a Zionist is now increasingly a right-coded statement. It was remarkable to see Biden in his latest interview with Seth Myers to state publicly that he is a Zionist. It's an uncontroversial statement for a man of Biden's age, but I suspect it will be a toxic statement for liberals under the age of 40, at least among non-Jewish liberals. I think Israel becoming a bipartisan football is ultimately bad for the country, but I don't see how it ends any other way. And given how liberals dominate elite institutions in America, I'd argue that this does not augur well in the long run. If Biden loses in 2024 because of Michigan, then a narrative will be set that you cannot be too pro-Israel as a democrat anymore.
Israel is conducting an operation that by all accounts seems very bloody and, to say the least, not one where they are deliberately trying to avoid civilian casualties. Taking this into account, these polling results would appear to show American support for Israel to be notably strong, among both parties.
I will say that the details of October 7th seem like they were clearly designed to make it as hard as possible to respond with restraint.
Which makes it all the more disappointing that Israel chose to do exactly what Hamas wanted them to do.
Just curious, what response do you think would go against what Hamas wanted Israel to do?
Using the public outpouring of sympathy to sign lasting diplomatic deals with the Gulf Arab monarchies, and put pressure on countries like Turkey to cut Gaza off. Putting Israel on a positive footing, while steadfastly refusing to provide Hamas with footage of dead Arab children.
Hamas' intent was always to provoke Israel into committing violence against Arab civilians, which would preclude diplomatic cooperation with Muslim powers. Israel has gone above and beyond to make sure Hamas got what it wanted.
Gaza is already cut off even from neighboring Egypt. So what Israel should have done is basically no change - meaning that they should continue providing water, electricity and support the Gaza in the same way as in the past. Basically pretend that nothing changed, correct?
Gaza depended on billions in aid, much of it in cash, from sponsors in Qatar, SA, Turkey, and Malaysia, along with other countries in the Dar Al Islam. The long term key to eliminating Hamas and securing Israel's future is reducing that international support.
An Israel with the diplomatic and public support of Turkey and SA would be a major change, not necessarily to Hamas' benefit.
I mean, you had pro-Palestinian protests all over the place immediately after Israel was attacked. I don't think there'd have been much appetite for "collective punishment" by cutting aid money.
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