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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1590 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 21, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Israel announces largest West Bank land seizure since 1993 during Blinken visit

This is particularly jarring after Biden has made more overt moves indicating he'd like to see deescalation, most recently the (failed) UN ceasefire resolution.

Most striking to me, personally, is the overwhelmingly negative sentiment on r/neoliberal.

For those who don't know, /r/neoliberal are very pro-Biden (and anti-Trump), generally pro-free market (and hence anti-anti-capitalist), and (imo) generally see themselves as moderate Democrats. Until today I'd have characterized them as pro-Israel, but this seems like a marked change. A top 1% subreddit changing its political beliefs is pretty rare.

I want to say this foreshadows a change in broader public support, but perhaps I'm a bit late to the party -- Gallup has already shown dropping support for Israel generally:

Fifty-eight percent of Americans, down from 68% last year, have a “very” or “mostly favorable” view of Israel. This is the lowest favorable rating for Israel in over two decades. At the same time, positive opinions of the Palestinian Authority have dropped from 26% to 18%, the lowest since 2015.

(Last sentence is just to give some context: yes support for Israel has dropped, but, it's worth noting, so has support for Palestine)

And, perhaps to be expected, this is most pronounced among young people:

Young adults show the biggest decline in ratings of Israel, dropping from 64% favorable among 18- to 34-year-olds in 2023 to 38%. Middle-aged adults (those aged 35 to 54) show a smaller but still significant drop, from 66% to 55%, while there has been no meaningful change among adults aged 55 and older.

I can't imagine that whatever Israel has gained in the last year is worth the long-term cost of burning its support with the next two generations of Americans.

I think the Israelis realize that their favorability ratings are going to suffer a pretty big generational drop anyway when the American Boomers start dying off and are scrambling to try and get things settled for good before that happens.

Not a bad idea...under a Trump presidency. It looks like Biden might lose but it actually hasn't happened yet and he's clearly feeling pressure.

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